Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery (23 page)

“Someone in there with Minck?” Phil asked.

“No,” said Violet. “Tooth?”

“Yeah,” said Phil, moving to the inner door.

“You sure you want to see Dr. Minck?” she said.

“Emergency,” said Phil.

“It’d have to be,” said Violet.

We went in. Shelly was sitting in his chair, listening to the radio. Something classical was playing, and Shelly was eating a sandwich with his left hand and conducting the orchestra on the radio with his right, which also held a half-finished cigar.

He looked up, got up, and Phil put me in the chair.

“What happened?” Shelly asked.

“Tooth,” said Phil. “Fix him up enough so we can get him to a real dentist.”

“I am a …” Shelly began indignantly.

“Fix him,” said Phil softly, looking at Shelly who nodded.

“Get rid of the sandwich,” said Phil. “Get rid of the cigar. Go wash your hands.”

Shelly adjusted his glasses and waddled over to the sink where he dropped the sandwich and cigar in the trash.

“Soap,” said Phil.

Shelly turned on the water and picked up a bar of soap, showing it to Phil.

I think I groaned. The door was about ten feet away. I knew I could make it that far. I didn’t know how much further. I closed my eyes and heard the water running.

“Those instruments clean?” Phil asked.

“Violet cleaned them this morning,” Shelly said, his voice quivering.

“Move,” said Phil.

I considered opening my eyes and decided not to. I could smell garlic and tobacco as Shelly leaned over me.

“Open your mouth, Toby,” he said.

I refused.

“Open up,” Phil said.

I opened and felt Shelly’s pudgy fingers entering where I thought they would never enter.

“Wow,” he said. “That must hurt like hell.”

It was a great diagnosis.

“I’ve got to give you a shot,” he said.

How many screams had I heard from this chair when I sat in the little office a few feet away where Pancho the phantom screenwriter was probably now seated pencil in hand searching for something creative to say about the man who was about to do mortal damage to my mouth?

I closed my mouth. Phil told me to open it. I considered defying him. Then I remembered the last time I had defied my brother when he was close enough to reach out and grab me. I opened my mouth.

“Don’t hum,” I whispered.

“Huh?” said Shelly.

“Don’t hum. Don’t sing,” I managed to get out.

“Okay,” he said. “Keep your mouth open. This is going to hurt a little, maybe.”

My mouth already hurt more than a little, and there was no “maybe” about it.

“There,” Shelly said.

I opened my eyes.

“You okay?” Shelly asked.

“Didn’t feel it,” I said.

Shelly was sweating. Shelly was smiling. He leaned over his tray of tools of torture, squinting at them through the super-thick lenses of his glasses. He started to hum.

“No,” I said.

He stopped humming. I looked at Phil who stood with his arms folded.

“Open wide,” Shelly said.

He had something in his hand. I didn’t want to look at it. Then I heard the familiar sound of the drill. I think I passed out.

I had a dream. Violet was sitting in my lap. She smelled like oil of cloves. She was putting five-dollar bills in my pockets and smiling as she said, Zale, Galento, Louis, Tenn Hoff. In the background, Vaughn Monroe was singing
I’ll Walk Alone
. I was afraid Violet’s husband Rocky would come through the door in uniform, drop his duffle bag when he saw his wife in my lap, and then kill me. I hoped that death didn’t come from a right to my molar.

No one came through the door. Vaughn Monroe kept crooning. Violet kept putting money in my pockets and then there was darkness.

“Toby?” I heard a definitely worried voice. “You there?”.

I tried to open my eyes. They refused.

“Toby,” came a different voice. My brother’s. “Come out of it.”

I forced my eyes open and saw Shelly. His cheek was twitching. Behind him stood Phil.

“Are you alright?” asked Shelly. “How does it feel?”

I felt my tooth with my tongue. It was smooth, no piece missing.

“I got rid of the decay and gave you a gold filling,” said Shelly.

“Tobias,” said Phil.

“Feels fine,” I said, still running my tongue over my tooth.

I looked at Shelly, who was blinking madly and wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve.

“You’re kidding?” he said.

“No,” I said. “Feels fine.”

I sat up. I was a little weak, but there was no pain, no throbbing, nothing but normal feeling.

I stood.

“Can I smoke now?” Shelly asked.

“Go ahead,” said Phil hand on my arm.

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

“Eventually,” said Phil.

“I feel fine,” I said. “It didn’t hurt.”

I looked at Shelly. He was fishing in the pocket of his jacket, which was on a hanger near the door to what had been my office. Shelly beamed at me.

“What do we owe you?” Phil asked.

Shelly found a cigar and waved his arm.

“No charge,” he said. “Anytime.”

“Thanks Shel,” I said.

“Nothing,” he said, sticking a fresh cigar in his mouth. “See you at the Roosevelt later.”

Phil and I moved into the reception area where Violet sat waiting for us.

“You’re alright?” Violet asked.

“Perfect,” I said.

Violet looked at Shelly’s door and then at us.

“That’s the first time since I’ve been working here,” she said.

“We’ve got work to do,” I said to Phil.

“We’ve got work to do,” I agreed.

        
Two hats are upside-down on the table. Next to them spread out a deck of cards facedown. Have your victim pick two cards and show them to others while you put the rest of the deck in one hat and cover it with the other hat. Have the person who selected the cards slide them between the two hats. Shake the hats together to mix the cards or have someone else shake them. Reach into the hats and pull out the two cards selected. Solution: When the victim picks the two cards and shows them, you put the rest of the pack in the hats bending the entire deck. When the two selected cards are put back in the hat, you’ll easily be able to reach into the hats even after the cards have been shaken and pick the two unbent cards, which you can show
.

From the
Blackstone, The Magic Detective
radio show

A
LICE
P
ALLAS
B
UTLER AND HER HUSBAND
were standing just inside the ban-room door when Phil and I arrived. Jeremy wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and a tie. I wondered, and not for the first time, what his collar size was. It wasn’t much larger than his wife’s. Alice wore a black dress that covered her ample arms, went down to her ankles, and left just enough room at the neck for a string of pearls.

They were talking to Jimmy Clark, who wore what looked like the same flannel shirt and dark slacks I had always seen him in.

There was no one else in the room.

Phil nodded and began his search of the room, which, except for the lack of table settings, looked exactly the way it had when Calvin Ott had been killed.

“Toby,” said Jeremy. “How is your tooth?”

“Do you believe in miracles?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jeremy answered.

“Me, too,” said Jimmy.

Alice didn’t answer. I had a feeling she didn’t believe in miracles. She believed in Alice and Jeremy.

“Shelly fixed it,” I said.

“Fixed …” asked Jeremy.

“My tooth,” I said, opening my mouth and pointing.

No one looked.

“It’s perfect,” I said. “If you’ve got a very broad definition of ‘perfect.’”

“Once in a lifetime,” said Alice.

“Did you know there was once—and only once—a perfectly symmetrical major league baseball game?” asked Jeremy.

I knew Jeremy had played baseball when he was about forty years younger. He’d been a first baseman. He had even read me a couple of poems he’d written about the game.

“No, I didn’t,” I said.

“I was there,” said Jeremy. “Some called it a miracle. August 13, 1910, the Pirates and Dodgers played an 8-8 tie. Each team had 38 at bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, 2 errors, 1 hit batsman, and 1 passed ball.”

“A tie?”

“Darkness,” said Jeremy. “God or the Fates chose that day and that game and said ‘it shall end in a perfect tie.’”

“Amen,” I said.

“And like so many miracles,” Jeremy went on. “No one watching was aware of it till the next day when someone looked at the statistics.”

“I saw a miracle once,” said Jimmy Clark. “Back home in Decatur. We were …”

He was interrupted by the arrival of the Bouton brothers. Pete, wearing a gray sports jacket and no tie, beckoned to Jimmy who said, “Excuse me” and moved toward the brothers who had paused at the door.

Harry was wearing a dark suit and a white turtleneck sweater. No tux. After I introduced him to Alice, he moved to the platform against the wall with Pete, who was carrying a black satchel very much like the one filled with money that Ott had shown us.

“Who’s watching Natasha?” I asked while Harry took the satchel, placed it on the table, and looked inside, checking whatever it was he needed.

“Violet for a while,” said Alice, her eyes on the activity.

Pete pointed to the curtain near the door and spoke to Jimmy. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Jimmy nodded.

Gunther and Shelly arrived together. Gunther, as usual, had dressed for the occasion, in a suit, vest, and perfectly Windsor-knotted tie. Shelly, in a yellow sweater bunched awkwardly at the waist, wore a grin as large as his biggest cigar.

“How’s my patient?” he asked, coming up to me and adjusting his glasses for a better look.

“Fine,” I said.

“Open,” Shelly said.

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

“Open, open,” he said, head tilted to one side.

I opened my mouth, hoping he wouldn’t put his fingers inside. He leaned forward and peered.

“Yep,” he said, backing away and actually rubbing his hands together. “Yep. You tell them?”

“I told them,” I said.

“Yep,” Shelly repeated.

“You wish us to go where we were when Calvin Ott was murdered?” Gunther asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“Toby, tell Blackstone,” said Shelly as Gunther guided him away. “About your tooth.”

Phil went through the door to the kitchen. Harry, Peter, and Jimmy bustled. Magicians, dressed as somberly as they thought the occasion required, began to arrive at the open door.

Alice and Jeremy, as we had arranged, had the job of preventing them from entering. Unless they could levitate, which a few of them did indeed claim, they would not get by the Butlers.

Phil came out of the kitchen and looked at Harry, who was adjusting his tie, hands folded in front of him.

A minute or two passed and the magicians in the hall had started to grow restless. I moved between Jeremy and Alice and announced that we were waiting for a special guest who would be here in a minute or two.

They grumbled. The magicians in Ott’s circle were all there. Leo Benz hunched down, hoping Phil and I wouldn’t see him.

From the rear of the pack, someone began making his way forward, apologizing as he came. Their backs were turned to him, so there was no recognition till Cornel Wilde was at the ballroom door, shaking my hand and smiling.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“I’m Alice Pallas Butler,” Alice said with what could almost have passed as a shy smile.

Wilde took her hand and said, “A pleasure to meet you.”

Alice stepped back and looked at Jeremy with a wider smile.

“You want me to …?” Wilde said.

“Just stand here as we let them in one at a time,” I said. “We told them we had a guest. You’re it. You can shake their hands to get a good look.”

Wilde nodded and Phil told Jeremy and Alice to let the magicians in one at a time. Wilde smiled with very white teeth as they moved past him. He held a few of the hands longer than others, didn’t seem to look at them, and let each person pass.

Phil and I watched Wilde for a sign of recognition, something to show that he had spotted the person who had been with Melvin Rand at Columbia.

They filed in, and, at the urging of Gunther and Shelly took their seats, looking up at Blackstone, who smiled like a man who had a secret.

When everyone was seated, I glanced toward Wilde. He shook his head, indicating that the person we were looking for hadn’t come through the door.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Eliminates a room full of people,” said Phil, eyes scanning the crowd.

“If it’s alright with you,” said Wilde. “I’ll just stand by the door.”

Phil nodded, and Wilde moved to the door next to Alice and Jeremy. The room was full. I motioned to the Butlers, who started to close the door. John Cawelti held up his hand and entered just as the doors were closing. He looked around, saw Phil and me and did a cross between a sneer and a smirk. Then he moved to the back wall, not far from Wilde, leaned against it and crossed his arms.

Pete Bouton sat at a table near the door. Jimmy wasn’t anywhere in sight. I knew he was behind the curtain, where he had been the night Ott was murdered.

“Gentlemen and lady,” Blackstone said, closing his eyes and dipping his head toward Alice. “This will not take long. I begin with a statement. I did not kill Calvin Ott, but I know how he was killed. If any of you would prefer to be the one to explain how it was done, I will relinquish the podium to you.”

He looked around the room. Magicians looked at each other. No one raised a hand.

“Very good,” said Blackstone. “Now if Mr. Peters will step up here.”

I wasn’t prepared for this. The last time I had been part of Blackstone’s act, I had almost been sliced in half wearing a chocolate soldier uniform. I moved to the podium.

“Mr. Peters shall play me,” said Blackstone, positioning me where he had stood when Ott had died. “And I shall play the late Calvin Ott.”