Smart Moves Read online

  “Underneath that dirty white smock there beats a heart,” I said, turning the corner.

  The Pink Gardenia was across the street, boarded up just like the kid had told us. The sign for the place was still there, painted in a nice scroll, a pink gardenia dividing the words PINK and GARDENIA. Posters covered the wooden planks on the windows. Three identical war posters were pasted on next to each other, reading, FOR YEARS THE JAPS WANTED OUR SCRAP … SAVE NOW AND LET ’EM HAVE IT.

  “I can see the headlines,” Shelly, said, nodding at the posters, “Japs hit by flying junk. Let’s go back to the hotel. It’s getting cold and the place is closed.”

  “Look for an entrance leading up there,” I said, pointing above the Pink Gardenia sign. There were windows above the storefront, a loft or offices.

  “What’s up there?” Shelly asked, squinting.

  “Columbia Pictures,” I said, moving down the sidewalk.

  The doorway wasn’t hiding, but it wasn’t advertising itself with neon either. There was a nightlight inside, but I couldn’t see through the pebble-glass door. There was a bell. I rang it and put my hand to my jacket, just in case Povey opened the door. We could hear the bell ring upstairs, far inside the building, echoing and empty. I rang again. Nothing.

  “There’s no one there,” Shelly said.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “We’re not leaving, are we?” he asked, knowing the answer

  “We’re not leaving. You want to go back on the corner and sell your papers?”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  We looked around for cops, pedestrians, or stray bums. There weren’t any. We could see Second Avenue half a block down, where lights were on and people walked looking for sounds and other people, but we were on a side street in the East Thirties. There were no stray crowds here at night. The rest of the street looked like small businesses, warehouses. I tried my file. It was fine on the bottom lock, but there was a bolt lock on the bottom. “Laugh, Shelly,” I said, taking out my pistol.

  “You’re going to shoot me if I don’t laugh?” he said, shaking his head. “You need serious psychiatric help, Toby. You’re beyond tooth therapy, I can tell you.”

  I reached over and tickled him. He danced back with a wild, high laugh, and I turned and hit the panel of glass as Shelly tried to control a second round of gargling laughter. The panel cracked and broke, but the thick pane didn’t crumble. Glass fell inside the hallway. I pulled out a few stray shards, reached in and opened the bolt lock.”

  “Come on,” I whispered. “And shut up.”

  “You make me laugh and then you tell me to shut up,” Shelly cried. “We’ve got to have a serious … You’re going in there?”

  “We’re going in.” And in we went.

  “Toby, someone will see the broken window, for God’s sake,” he cried, his voice echoing up the dark stairway. “I’ll be caught and disbarred.”

  “Lawyers get disbarred,” I said, starting up the stairs. “Dentists get disbanded or defrocked or something.”

  We were not being silent. I gave up hope of being silent. If Povey were at the top of the stairs in the dark, all he would have to do was step out and shoot the two of us. He probably wouldn’t even get a two-dollar disturbing-the-peace ticket for killing us. We were breaking and entering. But nobody shot us. We just galumphed up the stairs, me trying to see into the darkness, Shelly panting and puffing behind me.

  “What’s up there? What do you see?” Shelly croaked.

  “It’s dark,” I said, stumbling onto a landing. “Look around for a light switch.”

  I could make out a door in the darkness, but it wasn’t until Shelly found the switch that I could see both it and the two doors beyond. One door was marked TOP NOTCH BROADWAY TALENT, with the name AL SINGER in smaller letters under it. The lettering was in black on the same pebbly glass as the entrance to the building. Next to TOP NOTCH was SIG DIAMOND, MUSIC BROKER.

  “What’s a music broker?” Shelly asked reasonably, but I was looking at the remaining door, which had a piece of white cardboard on it with the words COLUMBIA FILMS stenciled in black paint.

  “Somehow I don’t think this is Harry Cohn’s office,” I said, turning the door handle. It was open. The place was big, stretching the length of the building. To our right were the windows we had looked up at from the street. There was enough light to bounce a grey fog across the floor from the low ceiling, but not enough to penetrate the corners. Shelly came in behind me. I stood a few seconds and put my hand on Shelly’s shoulder to stop him.

  “All right,” Shelly said. “Let’s look around and get out of here.”

  The center of the floor was clear, except for a desk and some chairs and cabinets. It looked like a crude attempt to create an office in the middle of a musty attic. It was probably the “set” on which Alex had written his notes to Einstein. To our left were a few doors and furniture. I listened to Shelly breathe heavily. Something moved in the darkness. “What’s that?” Shelly squealed.

  “A cat,” I said, leveling my .38 at darkness.

  “Yes,” came Povey’s voice. “A cat. Perfect. A cat who has lured two mice into a trap.”

  “I’ve got a gun, Povey,” I said.

  “I see it,” he replied, while I tried to get a fix on him. “And I see you, but you obviously do not see me or you would not be looking over there.”

  “There,” shrieked Shelly, pointing into another corner.

  I turned in the direction he was pointing. There was someone there but it wasn’t Povey. I couldn’t see Povey as I spun around, but in another distant corner I could make out a patch of white, the bandage on his hand where Paul Robeson had slashed him with the blunt sword.

  It was time to do something and get the hell out of there.

  “I’m going to shoot two trespassers,” Povey said.

  “They’ll check your identification,” I said. “The FBI knows about you. You won’t get away with it.”

  “But what difference will that make to you? You’ll be dead,” he said, quite happily. “Besides, it is not I, but the renter of this loft, who will report the act of criminal trespass. And then I will get your Jew scientist. I’ve enjoyed this game, but my employers are growing impatient.”

  “Toby,” Shelly whispered at my side. “Damn it, do something.”

  “I took a shot toward Povey’s dark corner and shoved Shelly to the left, toward one of the offices in the loft. Shelly staggered into a shadow and I rolled after him, bullets coming at me from two directions.

  “Through that door,” I shouted.

  “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” Shelly sobbed and crawled on his hands and knees through the door. Another shot hit the floor behind me, and I scampered after the puffing dentist and kicked the door closed behind us.

  “This isn’t fun. It’s no fun at all,” Shelly said, crawling into a corner of the small room. The door I had pushed closed was thick and heavy. I hadn’t gotten a good look at it, but I had the feeling that it could stop a bullet. Footsteps, more than one pair, came across the floor outside and I aimed my .38 at the closed door. There were no windows in the room, nothing they could break to get a shot at us. Even I couldn’t miss someone coming through the door at this distance.

  “The trap,” Povey laughed through the thick door. “We would have preferred to shoot you, but you can remain in there till we dispose of the Juden and the Shvartz.”

  “Someone heard the shots,” I shouted. “The cops will be here.”

  “No,” said Povey. “This is a film studio, remember? We will simply wait for a few minutes outside the door, and if the police show up we will tell them we shoot a movie and we are sorry to make noise.”

  “Don’t come in here,” screamed Shelly.

  “That’s telling him, Shell,” I said, my arms weakening but my gun still pointed at the door. Something clicked.

  “This used to be a furrier’s shop,” Povey said. “You are in a small fur vault. And there you will remain. Two mice
. No,” he laughed. “A mink and a mouse … I don’t hear you laughing at my joke.”

  I shot at the door. The bullet thudded into the steel, ricocheted, and screeched past my face.

  “Toby,” Shelly groaned.

  “I don’t like you anymore,” said Povey beyond the door. “I don’t like you at all, Peters.”

  Someone else spoke quietly to Povey. I could hear the voice, but not the words. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman or even if the words were in English, and Shelly’s whimpering didn’t help. The voice stopped and footsteps moved away from the door. We sat listening. Another door opened, probably the one to the loft.

  “Let’s get out, out,” Shelly yelled, getting up.

  “It may be a trick,” I said. “One of them may have left. The other one might be out there, waiting for us to step out.”

  A light went on. Shelly was standing, his pudgy hand on the cord of a single bulb, dangling from the ceiling. The room was small, empty, and musty. Shelly sneezed. He turned and tried the handle of the door, a bar of metal that shook but didn’t turn. “We’re trapped,” he said, turning to me.

  “That’s what he said,” I reminded him. I didn’t get up.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” Shelly sat, rattling the door handle. “Out. O-U-T. Help me.”

  “Nothing to help with,” I said. I took off my jacket, put my .38 where I could reach it, and lay down. If I could stay on my back, I might not get a great night’s sleep, but I’d be able to walk in the morning. “Get some sleep, Shell. Turn out the light and get some sleep.”

  “We’ll suffocate like …”

  “Mice or minks,” I said. “There’s a crack under the door. It’s not sealed. Turn off the light, in case they decide to come back and try again. In the morning, when people come to work, we’ll start making noise and someone will let us out.”

  “Nobody will let us … Toby, we’ve got to get out.”

  “You work on it, Shell,” I said. “If you get the door open, let me know. If you don’t, turn off the light and try to be quiet.”

  He jangled the door handle a few more times, gave up, and sat down, sweating. He reached into his pocket.

  “No cigars,” I said.

  He put the cigars away and pouted. “It’s all your fault,” he said, pointing a finger at me.

  Since we both agreed, I had nothing to add.

  “Turn off the light, Shell,” I said and lay back with my eyes closed. He grumbled, moaned, and about ten minutes later turned off the light.

  Douglas MacArthur and Koko the Clown came to save us during the night. Koko oozed in under the door. The general came riding through the wall in a jeep driven by a smiling soldier, wearing only underpants. Shelly thanked the soldier and the clown, and MacArthur offered the use of his jeep and driver to save Einstein and Paul Robeson. Koko handed me an oversize fountain pen with a sharp point to use as a weapon. Shelly and I were about to get in the jeep when Mutt and Jeff suddenly appeared with a gun in each hand. “Oh, oh,” said Koko, rolling his eyes. He looked around the room, spotted an inkwell, and dived in.

  Rather than be shot by two cartoon characters, I shook my shoulders, ground my teeth, and woke up. Shelly was asleep, his jacket under his head, curled in a ball like an overweight cat. Light crept in under the door. I sat up. Except for the ache in my ribs, head, and groin, where Povey had hit me during our dance after the Albanese shooting, I felt reasonably well. No backache. My face was covered with spikes of beard and my tongue with dried glue. It was time to get back to work. I rolled over and shook Shelly.

  “Mildred,” he groaned. “It’s Sunday.”

  I shook him again.

  “Mildred,” he cried. “Not in the middle of the night. You promised you’d wait till …”

  His eyes opened and he sat up. His glasses were at a crazy angle, and his mouth was open as if he had awakened in Oz. “I don’t want to be here,” he wailed.

  “Let’s see what we can do about it,” I took out my gun, holding it down to the bottom of the door and shooting out into the loft. I waited ten minutes, while Shelly complained about missing breakfast, his dental meeting, a change of underwear, and his toothbrush. Then I shot again. Something or someone stirred. Voices in doors beyond doors or from the street. About three minutes later I could hear the outer door to Columbia Films open. We put our heads down to the floor and yelled, “Here, we’re in here.”

  A few seconds later the metal door opened, and we looked up at a tiny man in a grey suit and vest. “Who’re you?” he asked.

  “Actors,” I said. “We got trapped in here last night after a shooting.”

  “Actors?” the little man said, patting back his thin white hair. “I’m Al Singer, the agent. You got representation?”

  We got up off the floor and moved past him. “No,” I said.

  “I can get you a booking, maybe two, three weeks in Miami,” he said, following us. “I need a gangster type and a fat second banana for Phil Silvers’ act. It’s an emergency. What do you say? Train fare, twenty bucks a night, may make you a regular part of the show if they don’t find the two schlemiels who ran out on Phil.”

  Shelly limped and I ached to the door.

  “Think it over,” Singer said behind us as we went down the stairs. “Name’s Al Singer. I’m in the book.”

  I dug into my pocket for my notebook and found it as we walked to Second Avenue. People, cars all over the place.

  “I need a toilet,” Shelly said, looking around. He spotted a small quick-fix restaurant and headed for it. The place was half full, and the clock on the wall said it was almost eight. Shelly went for the toilet and I went for the phone.

  “What’ll it be?” the guy behind the counter called.

  “Bowl of Wheaties and a coffee for me,” I said, pulling out a pocketful of coins and losing some on the floor.

  “Eggs, ham, coffee,” shouted Shelly, going into the toilet.

  I got the operator and had her give me the number in Princeton. No one answered at Einstein’s. I tried the number across the street. Archer answered.

  “I thought you were in New York,” I said, looking at the counterman, who was pointing to the two seats he was holding for Shelly and me.

  “We’re back here,” he sighed. “Orders from headquarters. The kids are in the big city. We’re scientist-sitting again. What do you want?”

  “I ran into Povey last night. I thought you were going to pull him in?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, Peters, but sometimes even the FBI doesn’t find someone in a city of five million in four or five hours.”

  “Povey said he was going to get Einstein and Robeson,” I said, “I had the feeling he was on his way to one of them last night.”

  “We put some people on Robeson last night,” Spade said. “Einstein’s safe across the street with his numbers. I can see the place from here.”

  “Then why doesn’t he answer the phone?” I asked.

  The counterman looked up over a customer and motioned to me that my Wheaties were served. Shelly came out of the toilet and made his way to his eggs. “You need toilet paper in there,” he told the counterman.

  “I’ll go see,” said Spade, and he hung up.

  I hung up too and hurried to Shelly. “Put that stuff in a sandwich,” I said, scooping a few mouthfuls of milk and Wheaties into my mouth. “We’re going to Princeton.”

  “I’m too old to go back to school,” Shelly said wearily. “I’ve already gone to Utah State Dental.”

  “Let’s go, Shell,” I said, taking a few more spoons of cereal and gulping down some coffee.

  A guy sitting to the right, trying to read his paper, looked at us out of the corner of his eye and decided not to make an issue of our boorish manners.

  “Put my friend’s stuff in a bun,” I told the counterman.

  “What’s the hurry?” the man said.

  “We’ve got to save Albert Einstein from Nazis,” I explained.

  “Gotcha,” s
aid the counterman, moving Shelly’s plate in mid-bite. “That’ll be eighty cents for the two of you.”

  “I’m not going,” said Shelly, pulling his plate back. “I’ve got a dental conference here, remember?”

  “Suit yourself, Shell. I’ll see you later.”

  I left him with the check and heard him order another egg as I hit the street. The first cabbie said he wouldn’t go to Princeton. The second one gave me a flat fee of fifteen bucks. I told him it was a deal, handed him the cash in advance, and sat back, wondering if Einstein would be alive when I got to New Jersey.

  10

  By the time we pulled up in front of the Einstein house in Princeton, the expenses for transportation on this case had caught up with my advance. If Einstein were still alive, I’d need more money and a new notebook. The old one was full, and the spiral had just given up any hope of holding onto the few remaining pages.

  “You want I should wait?” the cabbie said as I handed him some change.

  “No thanks. I’ll catch the bus back.”

  “You want some advice?” he asked as I closed the door.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Shave,” he said. “Neighborhood like this they’ll think you’re some kind of bum.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and ran up the steps to Einstein’s house. I rang the bell, knocked at the door, rang again, tried to see through the windows. No dice. I went around the back of the house and looked through the big window of Einstein’s study. He wasn’t in there. I tried the back door and wasn’t surprised when it was locked. I was surprised at how easily I opened it with my penknife. If the FBI was watching this place, how come I was getting into it so easily without even trying to hide?

  “Hello,” I yelled, pistol out, as I walked through the kitchen, trailing dirt from the garden. No answer. I opened the refrigerator and took out a couple of carrots and half-empty quart bottle of milk. Alternating chomps on the carrots and gulps of the milk, I went through the house looking for Einstein’s body. I was coming down the stairs in the front hall when a key clinked in the door. I sat down, .38 in my lap, popped the last piece of carrot in my mouth, washed it down with a gulp of milk, rubbed the stubble on my chin, and waited while the door opened and Mark Walker walked in. He was moving quietly as he stepped in. He didn’t see me for maybe ten seconds, which was a little surprising.