Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery Read online

  “The British forces …” the deeply serious voice on the radio was saying when Jimmy turned it off.

  “Sorry, you were saying?” he asked, wiping his hands on his work pants.

  “Guy on the radio was going to say the British crossed the Odon River and beat back nine Nazi attacks,” I said. “We heard it on the radio on the way here.”

  “Great,” he said, beaming and looking at us. “War’s almost over, you think?”

  Phil nodded.

  “Looks that way,” I said.

  “My brothers are out there,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Terry’s in Germany somewhere. Connie’s in the Pacific. I’d still be if it wasn’t for this.”

  He tapped his game leg.

  “Mom says it was God’s way of being sure she had one son safe. But … I’m sorry. You wanted to talk about last night, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  Phil just stood there, hands behind his back, feet apart looking less than happy.

  “Nothing much to tell,” said Jimmy. “Got to the hotel early, sat behind the curtain under a table with a big white tablecloth hanging over to cover me. People went by you know. Then, when the dinner started, I crawled out, waited for the cue from Mr. Blackstone, hit the light switch, out went the lights, made the count, hit the switch, on came the lights, make the count, lights out again and like that. Then back under the table.”

  “And you stayed there?” I asked.

  “Didn’t move,” he said, playing with the screwdriver and looking at the box as if he wanted to get back to it.

  “The lights went out again,” I said.

  “Yep. That’s when Mr. Ott got killed.”

  “You see who turned the lights on and off? You were how far from the switch?”

  “Few feet. Didn’t see who did it. I stayed under the table.”

  “Didn’t see anything?”

  “Saw his shoes,” Jimmy said. “And socks.”

  “Small feet? Big feet?”

  “Regular feet.”

  “Black shoes?”

  “Yeah, tuxedo pants. One thing funny though.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Socks were red. I mean the guy who turned the lights out. His socks were red,” said Jimmy. “Why would someone be wearing red socks with a tuxedo?”

  “I don’t know,” I went on. “Could you tell if he was big, little, young, old?”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “Red. You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Mr. Blackstone going to be alright?” he asked as Phil and I moved toward the stage door.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said.

  “I’d do anything for Mr. Blackstone and Pete,” he said. “I was doing dishes for food and a few dollars a week when they found me in Detroit, asked me if I wanted a job with them. I’m learning the business. I’m not just a gimp farm kid or a dish jockey.”

  “We’ll let you know,” I said. “Red socks?”

  “Red,” he said.

  The radio came back on behind us as we headed for the door and the voice behind us said, “This is the N.B.C. Red Network.”

  Raymond Ramutka, the old man at the stage door, sat on a wooden chair smoking his pipe and playing with his suspenders. He looked up from his newspaper and said,

  “The boy help any?”

  “Maybe, a little,” I said.

  “Word is Blackstone is in some kind of trouble,” said Ramutka, ruffling his bushy white hair.

  “Where’d the word come from?” I asked.

  “Here, there, the boy. The police don’t really think Blackstone had anything to do with killing that big spender in the dressing room do they?”

  He pointed his pipe stem up the metal steps toward the dressing rooms.

  “Not Harry Blackstone,” he went on before we could answer. “Wouldn’t hurt an ant. I’ve been at this door for eleven years and before that at the Squire in Baltimore. Never met a performer as nice as Blackstone. Well, maybe Beatrice Kay or Eddie Cantor. Did I tell you I used to be a singer?”

  “You did,” Phil said impatiently.

  “Girl of the Golden West,” Ramutka reminisced.

  “You said,” said Phil.

  “Did I? Well …” he shrugged, put his pipe back between his teeth and looked down at his newspaper as we went out the door.

  I looked at Phil. He looked at me.

  “What?” he said.

  “You could have been nicer to the old man,” I said.

  “Oh crap. You want me to go back in and ask him to sing me an aria?”

  “Too late,” I said.

  “Fine. Let’s go find a magician with red socks.”

  We stopped at a Rexall Drug Store where I called Mrs. Plaut’s while Phil had a cup of coffee and a pair of donuts. Mrs. Plaut answered.

  “Can I speak to Gunther?” I said. “This is Toby Peters.”

  “Of course you can speak to him,” she said. “I do not make a habit of keeping telephone calls from people who reside in my abode.”

  “May I speak to him?” I tried.

  “You are capable of speech,” she said. “Therefore you can speak to him. And I just told you you don’t need my permission.”

  “How should I say it?” I asked.

  “Please get Mr. Gunther on the telephone,” she said.

  “Please get Mr. Gunther on the telephone,” I repeated.

  I heard the phone drop on the cord and bang into the wall. While I waited, I looked at Phil. In one month, he had lost his wife and his job and gone into business with me, and business was not looking as good as we would like. And now his son had whooping cough, and I could see that he was thinking that he had another son and daughter who could also get it. My brother did not look happy. This was a dangerous time for the world. When Phil wasn’t happy, it was best to keep a reasonably safe football field length between you and him.

  “Toby?” came Gunther’s voice.

  I could picture him standing on the small stool next to the phone on the second floor landing.

  “Yes, anything yet?”

  “I’ve been most fortunate,” he said. “Following the autopsy of the unfortunate Calvin Ott, there will be a funeral at Horskey’s Funeral Home in Sherman Oaks not far from the late Mr. Ott’s home.”

  I knew Horskey’s. One of my ex-wife Anne’s ex-husbands had funeraled there.

  “It seems the funeral arrangements are being made by a group called the Torch Bearers of Dranabadur,” said Gunther.

  It was the group that had been meeting the night Phil and I had gone to Ott’s house. I was sure I had seen some if not all of them at the Blackstone dinner. I didn’t remember any of them being blonde. Ott had given their names. I couldn’t remember any of them but Leo.

  “Can you get their full names and addresses?”

  “I will endeavor to do so,” Gunther said.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  We hung up, and I went to sit next to Phil, who was working on his second donut and second cup of coffee. There was a mug steaming for me and two sinkers.

  “Gunther’s got a line on the guy’s who were at Ott’s house the other night,” I said.

  Phil grunted and looked at what was left of his donut, probably considering whether he would go for a third.

  “He’s trying to find out their names and where they live,” I said. “We can find out if they wear red socks.”

  Phil grunted again, reached into his jacket pocket, came out with the same notebook he used when he was a cop, flipped it open, and read:

  “Wayne Dutton, Paul Steele, Walter Masonick, Milton Beck-stall, Steven Freemont, William Teel, Richard Karkette, and Leo Benz.”

  He handed me the notebook. Each name had an address next to it.

  Phil ordered another donut.

  “Checked them out this morning. Ott had given us the first names. They were all registered with that magicians group. Took ten bucks to
a secretary to get it.”

  “We’ll put it on Blackstone’s bill,” I said. “I better call Gunther and tell him we don’t need the names and addresses.”

  “I’m having someone in the department checking to see if any of our Dranabadurians have arrest records,” said Phil.

  “You’re a treasure,” I said, leaning toward him as the waitress leaned forward to refill our cups.

  “Kiss me on the head and I’ll break your face.”

  “It’s okay,” I told the waitress. “He’s my brother.”

  I ordered another donut and called Mrs. Plaut’s back, praying that Gunther would answer the phone. He did.

  “Gunther, forget about tracking down those names and addresses. We’ve got them.”

  “Then what task shall I perform?”

  “How about going back to Columbia Pictures and seeing if someone working on the picture when Cunningham showed up can give you a better description of the person who was with him when he talked to Wilde?”

  “I would prefer not to talk to that Phil Silvers person.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I shall leave immediately,” Gunther said.

  I went back to Phil and said, “Let’s go find a magician with red socks.”

  Being trained investigators with a combined total of more than thirty years of police work, we quickly figured out that we didn’t have to talk to all of the Dranabadurians on our list. We just had to find one who could tell us which of his friends wore red socks.

  We could work alphabetically or by distance from the drugstore. We went to the closest address. It was in Hollywood, on Vine, not far from Mrs. Plaut’s. The address, a doorway wedged between a small bakery and an even smaller shoemaker’s, was called Karkette’s Gags & Tricks. We rang the bell in the doorway and waited. No answer. Rang again. No answer. No conference was necessary. We entered the shop and were greeted by a five-foot-high cardboard cartoon cutout of Adolph Hitler looking over his shoulder at us with his bare behind in the air just below eye level. Adolph looked as if we had surprised him getting off the toilet. We were definitely not in anyone’s idea of a high class establishment.

  Before we could pass Adolph, he passed air. I could tell by Phil’s tightened jaw that he didn’t find Hitler farting funny. I didn’t either. Richard Karkette, however, clearly did.

  He appeared from behind the cutout and said, “Funny, huh?”

  I didn’t recognize him from Ott’s or the Roosevelt ballroom, but that may have been because he wasn’t wearing a tux but a pair of tan trousers and a light green shirt with dark green buttons.

  He was about my height, my age, and thin with a little belly that made him look like a pregnant stork. He was bald and grinning.

  “Can I help you with …?”

  He stopped, looked at us both with recognition and went on, “You were at Marcus’s house the other night and the ballroom last night.”

  He wasn’t grinning anymore.

  “I can see you’re all broken up about Calvin Ott’s murder,” said Phil, moving to within a foot of the man’s face.

  “An act,” Karkette said. “I’ve got a business to run, a living to make. I’m grinning on the outside, see.”

  He grinned, showing large, not very white teeth.

  “But inside,” he went on, touching his heart underneath a green button, “I’m mourning. Marcus was a great friend, a mentor.”

  “And a good customer?”

  “The best,” said Karkette. “What do you want?”

  “Pull up your pants legs,” Phil said.

  “Huh?”

  “Pull ’em up,” Phil repeated, louder. “Now.”

  Karkette pulled up his pants legs. He looked like he was going to do a dainty dance. His socks were red. Had we got lucky on our first shot?

  “Were you wearing red socks like those last night?” Phil said.

  “Yes, sure. Can I put my pants down now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you turn off the lights when Ott was killed?” asked Phil.

  “Did I … I was sitting at the table. Table Four. Ask anybody.”

  “Was he sitting at Table Four?” Phil asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “When I said ‘anybody,’ I didn’t mean ‘anybody,’” said Kar-kette. “I meant the people at the table.”

  “Someone saw you turn off the lights,” I said.

  “They couldn’t have.”

  Phil and I had fallen into our Ernest Hemingway The Killers act. We made a formidable pair. Karkette was most definitely intimidated from his toe of his red socks to his top green button.

  “Red socks are a giveaway,” I said.

  “Red … We were all wearing red socks,” Karkette said, looking from Phil to me and trying to decide which of us might be more reasonable.

  “All?” I asked.

  “The Dranabadurians,” he said. “We wear red socks in honor of Dranabadur. Red socks were his trademark. He’d make a move sort of like this.”

  Karkette made a little turn.

  “See, the socks sort of grab your attention,” he said. “He’d do it when he wanted that split part of a second to help draw attention from whatever trick he was performing.”

  “You were all wearing red socks,” I repeated.

  “All, even Marcus.”

  “Okay,” said Phil wearily, pulling out his notebook. “The names of everyone at your table last night.”

  “You’re going to ask them if I turned out the lights?” he said.

  “We are,” I said. “And you’re going to tell us who was sitting at the table when the lights went out.”

  “I see,” he said. “Elimination. Like Sherlock Holmes said, ‘When everything else is eliminated, whatever remains must be the answer.’”

  “That’s stupid,” Phil said. “You never eliminate everything else. The names.”

  Karkette thought for a moment and then gave us the names of Dutton, Steele, Masonick, and Beckstall.

  “What about Freemont, Teel, and Benz?” Phil asked, looking at his list.

  “They were at another table,” said Karkette as the door opened and two sailors who looked like they were about twelve walked in.

  “Customers,” said Karkette, wedging his way between Phil and me.

  Karkette made Hitler pass air. The sailor kids thought it was funny. But they were only twelve.

  We went back out on Vine. Phil went over the list again and flipped his notebook closed.

  “Unless we’re dealing with a conspiracy,” I said. “One of these guys is going to turn up missing from his seat when the lights went out.”

  “Maybe,” said Phil with a familiar sigh, “but what will that give us? If he was switching the lights on and off, he couldn’t be killing Ott. He’ll have to give up whoever he was working with, whoever killed Ott.”

  “Which we know wasn’t our client,” I said.

  “Which we assume wasn’t our client,” said Phil. “Let’s get started.”

  And start we did. We went to three apartments, a citrus warehouse, two offices, a golf club, and a bar before we made our way to the last person on our list, Leo Benz. Not one person on the list was a professional full-time magician. As Steele told us, there were only about sixty magicians in the entire country making a living from magic; most of them did kids’ birthdays or Kiwanis Club and Rotary Club dinners or dish nights at the local movie house.

  “Best for last,” I said.

  I rang the bell at the small freshly painted white house on a quiet side street in Van Nuys. We had chosen Leo Benz for last because he was closest to Phil’s house in North Hollywood.

  “Just a minute. Just a minute,” came a woman’s voice. “Hurrying, hurrying.”

  The door opened and a little heavy-set woman in her sixties stood before us. Her dyed blonde hair was wrapped in curlers and her blue dress covered with little yellow circles hung almost to the floor.

  “You’re not the mail lady,” she
said.

  “We are not,” I agreed. “We’d like to talk to Leo Benz.”

  “Why?”

  “We have some questions,” Phil said.

  “What questions?”

  “Is he here?” I tried.

  “I can answer whatever questions you’ve got,” she said.

  “Not these,” I said before Phil could explode. “It’s about last night.”

  Phil took a step forward. She put her rotund body between him and the inside.

  “Last night Leo was at the movies,” she said. “He saw that new movie with Pat O’Brien. Marine Raiders. You want to know about the movie, ask me. I saw it.”

  “Last night Leo was at a dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel,” I said. “A man was murdered. Your husband is a witness.”

  “He’s my son,” she said. “And he … that lying little son-of-a-bitch. Are you cops?”

  We didn’t answer.

  She turned her head over her shoulder and screamed, “Leo, get your behind down here, you lying little twerp. The police are here.”

  Someone whined something inside the house. I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “He didn’t kill anybody,” she said. “Leo’s not capable. If he could kill someone, he would have killed me years ago.”

  She turned her head again and screamed even louder, “L-E-O.”

  And behind her came the clap of feet.

  Leo Benz, in all his lack of glory, stood revealed when his mother stepped back from the door. He was barefoot, wearing white boxer shorts and an undershirt. He needed a shave.

  “I know you,” he said, pointing at us and stepping behind his mother.

  “Leo, we’ve got questions,” Phil said.

  “I don’t have any answers,” he said.

  Leo’s mother turned and thumped her son on the head with the palm of her right hand.

  “Answer their questions,” she said. “And then you’ll answer to me.”

  Leo Benz, sans tux, beard, and shoes, looked like the kind of fat kid other kids like to poke in the stomach in the schoolyard.

  Phil and I walked in the house and Leo’s mother closed the door behind us.

  Leo backed into the living room, his mother moving ahead of him to sit in a faded red padded chair with her arms folded. There wasn’t much furniture, just a few chairs like the one Leo’s mom was in and a sagging couch covered in what looked like blue fur with patches worn down to the skin surface of the imaginary animal it had been taken from.