Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery (5 page)

“Mr. Peelers,” she said, looking up at me.

I had long ago decided not to correct her.

“It is I,” I said.

“I was going to give you this list this evening, but as luck would have it, here you are.”

“Here I am, as luck would have it,” I said. “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”

She looked at me and said,

“You need a shower and a change of clothes.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Shopping list,” she said, handing me the sheet she had been working on. I didn’t look at it.

“We’re having beef heart stew tonight, if you can do the shopping this afternoon.”

“I’ll do the shopping this afternoon,” I said.

She reached into the crocheted purse next to the wooden chair and came up with three one-dollar bills, which she handed to me along with the dreaded ration coupon book.

I looked at the list:

“The Cuticura is a necessity,” she said. “My hands.”

“I’m sure,” I agreed.

In truth, Mrs. Plaut did have delicate hands and long fingers.

“The ration calendar,” she said.

The dreaded ration calendar. There was no escape so I simply listened, mind growing numb.

“Processed food,” she said, without reference to notes. “Blue A8 through V8, book 4, is now valid at 10 points each for use with tokens. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“W8, X8, Y8, Z8, and A5 became good July 2.”

“Got it,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Meats and fats,” she said. “Red A8 through W8, book 4, are now valid at 10 points each for use with tokens, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

“And you should know, Mr. Peelers, that A-10 coupons are now valid for gasoline. Rationing rules now require every car owner to write his license number and state on all gas coupons in his possession as soon as they are issued to him. And here.”

She handed me about thirty additional sheets of lined paper.

“A chapter about Wooley in England,” she said.

“Wooley?”

“My second eldest brother, now deceased,” she said, with a shake of her head to indicate that this was information I should have possessed. “I would appreciate your reading it this night.”

“May I take a shower and change now?” I asked.

“You won’t need any change,” she said. “The three dollars will be quite enough.”

I didn’t answer. I went inside and headed for the steps. On my left were Mrs. Plaut’s rooms. Inside, her caged bird was screeching. She changed the name of the bird with cycles of the planets, the changing of the tides, the fortunes of war, the sudden emergence of long-forgotten friends. The current name of the bird, she had informed us at dinner the night before, was Admiral Nelson. It was as certain to change by breakfast tomorrow, as it was that Dewey would get the Republican nomination for president.

On my left was the parlor, decorated in the latest furniture and fashion of the year right after the Civil War.

I went up the steps and to my room where I put Mrs. Plaut’s grocery list, coupons, and the chapter of her book on the small table near the window. Then I took off my shirt, selected another one that seemed to have no missing buttons and was reasonably clean, and headed for the bathroom down the hall. Stripped, door secured by the flimsy hook and little eye, I showered and sang
A Little On The Lonely Side
, at least the words I could remember.

When I finished, I headed back toward my room pausing at the door of Gunther Wherthman, my closest friend, who stood less than four feet tall and carried himself with a dignity that should have been the envy of every slouching congressman.

I knocked. Gunther called for me to come in. The door wasn’t locked. No doors at Mrs. Plaut’s were allowed to be locked. Privacy, she believed, nurtured the possibility of perversion.

Gunther’s room was the same size as mine, but that’s where the comparison ended. My room looked like a messy college freshman’s dorm closet. A worn sofa against one wall, a dresser near the door, a small table with two chairs. A box of a refrigerator the size of a peach crate, and a mattress against the wall. The mattress plopped down on the floor at night and so did I. My back is ever on the verge of rebellion and needs a firm thin mattress and the promise that I will never sleep on my stomach or side.

Gunther’s room had a neatly made-up single bed in the corner with a muted multicolored Indian blanket over it and matching pillows on top. There was a single soft brown leather armchair, a dark Persian throw rug on the floor, dark wooden bookshelves against the walls, and a desk near the window with neat piles of paper, magazines, reports, and books. In the swivel chair by the desk, Gunther sat wearing, as he always did, a three-piece suit and tie. Gunther worked in his room as a translator for industry and the government. He always dressed for work.

“You think Grieg’s music can cause someone to feel no pain?” I asked, standing in the open doorway.

“He was of a dour Norwegian bent,” Gunther said seriously, with his slight Swiss accent, “and it has been said that even his
Peer Gynt Suite
might incline those less than devoted to his work to escape the performance by a protective self trance.”

“Meaning?”

“When bored by Grieg, people have been known to fall asleep, sometimes with their eyes open,” he explained. “May I ask why you present this question?”

“Shelly,” I said.

Gunther shook his head. The dentist’s name was explanation enough.

“What do you know about magicians?” I asked.

“When I was with the circus,” Gunther said, tapping the tiny fingers of his right hand on his desk, “I encountered several. At one point I was even employed by Spengler Aroyo, Spengler the Magnificent. Magicians like to have little people in their acts. He billed me as Hugo the Dwarf. I objected. I am not a dwarf. I quit. Magicians are often dual of visage—open, gregarious in public, intense and brooding in private.”

“Phil and I are working for Harry Blackstone,” I said.

“It is my understanding that he is an amiable gentleman of his word,” said Gunther. “Can I be of service?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. “What are you working on?”

“This?” he said, putting his palm on a yellow folder. “This is a fascinating technical report in Danish of a process for the ultra-refinement of crude oil.”

“Fascinating.”

“You jest,” said Gunther with a smile.

“See you at dinner,” I said. “Beef heart stew.”

I left the room closing the door behind me as the phone at the end of the hall rang. I moved to get it.

“Hello,” I said.

“Tobias,” said Phil. “Our client got another call. “Tomorrow night’s performance at the Pantages. The son-of-a-bitch said it would be Blackstone’s last unless he turned over his secrets to someone who would come to him at the theater before the show.”

“You talk to the caller?”

“Yeah,” said Phil. “I told him we would be waiting for him. He laughed and called me a blustering stooge.”

“What did you do?”

“Tore the damn phone off the wall.”

        
Write something on a sheet of paper, fold it, and tell the other person to place it in his pocket. Lay out two small piles of cards. Make it clear that the piles do not have the same number of cards. Tell the other person that you have predicted which pile he will point to. Have him point to a pile. Tell him to open the sheet of paper you have written on. The number 7 is written on the paper. Pick up the pile and count. There are seven cards in the pile. Solution: If the other person had picked the pile with four cards, you turn the cards over. They are all sevens
.

From the
Blackstone, The Magic Detective
radio show

A
ND THEN IT WAS
W
EDNESDAY,
the 25
^th
,and I was on the platform on my back about to be buzz-sawed up the middle, while dressed in a blue uniform with epaulets and big brass buttons.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened. I do know that the blade was real and spinning noisily very close to the last place I wanted it to be. Then darkness. I felt myself turning over, rolling to my right. Then I was lying on a mattress looking up at Jeremy Butler who reached down, took my arm, and lifted me up. Jimmy Clark, the freckled kid with the limp, stood next to him.

I reached down to be sure I was intact and dry. I was.

“Come,” said Jeremy, turning and leading me away. Beyond the curtain, from where I had tumbled onto the mattress, the crowd was applauding.

“What happened?”

“Blackstone turned you into a lion,” Jimmy said. “We’ve got to hurry so he can turn the lion back into you.”

The three of us dodged props, went through a small pack of heavily made-up girls with spangled blue swimsuits, evaded two men in Babes in Toyland uniforms like mine and headed up a steel staircase. The kid was in the lead, then Jeremy, then me.

The staircase rattled. Someone in the wings below gave a loud “shush,” which could probably be heard in the first half dozen rows of the theater.

At the top of the stairs, the kid went to a door, opened it and stepped back. I entered a large dressing room lined with mirrored dressing tables.

There was only one person in the bulb-lit room, a man at the third table on my left. He was leaning forward, his face pressed against the mirror, eyes open as if he were astonished by his own image and trying to get a closer look.

He was dead. No doubt. The giveaway was not just the open eyes and mouth, but the hole in the side of his head and the thick stream of blood making its way down his cheek.

“Who found him?” I asked.

“Marie,” said Jimmy.

“Marie?”

“This is her dressing room and the other girls’,” the kid said, unable to take his eyes off of the dead man. “She came back for … and she found him.”

I moved forward toward the body.

“Get Marie,” I said.

“She won’t come in here,” said Jimmy. “I know her. She’ll start screaming and all. He’s dead, right?”

People were gathering in the open doorway.

“Most sincerely dead,” I said, leaning over to look at the dead man’s face in the mirror. “And call the police.”

Outside the open door, people were gathering, looking, not quite taking in what was happening.

“Jeremy, close the door.”

Before he could close the door, my brother Phil and Pete Bouton stepped in. Phil looked at the body. He’d seen dozens before, but this one he recognized.

“Robert R. Cunningham,” he said.

“Who?”

“Blackmailer, con man, blackmail, posed as a cop sometimes, or an insurance investigator,” said Phil, moving in for a closer look at the dead man. “Had a private detective license. We took it away.”

Phil touched Cunningham’s cheek.

“Couldn’t have gotten it more than a few minutes ago. Who heard the shot? Saw someone?”

“The buzz saw,” said Pete Bouton. “The sound of the buzz saw probably drowned out the shot.”

“Which means,” I said. “The killer waited for the saw to start making noise.”

“Or he …,” Phil began.

“Or she,” I amended, “just got lucky.”

A knock. The door opened, and Jimmy Clark stuck his head in.

“Called the cops,” he said. “Marie’s out here.”

“Thanks,” I said, and then to Phil. “She found the body.”

Phil and Bouton stayed with the dead man. The kid and I went out onto the landing and through a small crowd of people. Voices in the crowd asked, “What happened? Someone hurt? Shouldn’t we call an ambulance? Who …?”

Jimmy guided me into a room three or four doors down. The room was crowded with boxes of rabbits, quacking ducks, fluttering and frightened cooing doves. Sitting with her back to a mirror was a pretty girl with short dark hair in bangs, very red lips and one-piece green bathing suit covered with glitter that caught the light and shimmered with each sob.

I ushered Jimmy outside, closed the door and turned to the girl.

“Marie,” I said.

No response.

“Marie,” I repeated.

This time her head jerked and she looked at or through me.

“You found the body.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered with a nod.

“You hear a shot?”

This time, the nod was a negative shake of the head.

“You see anyone near the dressing room?”

Positive nod this time.

“Who?”

She tried to speak, caught her breath and said, “A man. Came running out. I was going in to get …”

“What did he look like?”

“Suit, tie I think. Had a beard like the devil always has in pictures and movies you know?”

“I know.”

“And he was wearing a what-do-you-call it? Thing you wrap around your head?”