Think Fast, Mr. Peters Read online

  All over the theater, Lorres were standing up to give testimony of attempts on their lives. Within three minutes there were so many reports that if half of them were true it would have required the cooperation of the entire First Army in a massive conspiracy. There was no way to separate the real attempts, if there were any, from the invented ones, which there surely were.

  “OK. OK. Forget it,” I said. “Just a warm-up to get you all loose. Forget the whole thing. Let’s get on with the audition.” I got off the stage, looking around for anyone suspicious. The theater was filled with suspicious-looking people.

  “OK, Number One,” I called as I sat in an open seat in the first row a few seats away from a decidedly overweight Lorre.

  For the next hour they trouped up the stairs and became a blur. There were Lorres who looked fine but didn’t sound anything like the real thing. There were Lorres who sounded fine but didn’t look like the real thing. Then I had to remember that I wasn’t looking for a Lorre look-alike, but a Lowry look-alike.

  The line of actors and would-be actors went on doing Mr. Moto, the killer in M in fake and real German and, God help me, doing Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon.

  “You will kindly put your hands behind your head and turn around,” they said one after the other. “I am going to search you.”

  They emphasized different words, dragged out the sentence, rolled their eyes, and followed up with wild-eyed shouting of, “Where are the plans?”

  Three Lorres sang songs. One of them, a woman who obviously specialized in Marlene Dietrich, sang “Falling In Love Again” in English and German with her eyes wide open.

  I wrote down the numbers of those I didn’t think were awful and asked all of them to leave their names and addresses with Wayne on the way out. When the theater was clear, Lorre and Jeremy came out on the stage.

  “A very sobering experience,” said Lorre, looking at the empty stage and puffing on a cigarette. “I may never be able to watch myself again.”

  “No Steinholtz?” I asked. “No one you recognized?”

  “No,” said Lorre.

  “Well, that’s one morning wasted,” I said. “We didn’t even find an actor for the Steistel Brothers.”

  “Steistel?” said Lorre. “That name I know from somewhere too.”

  “They made films back in Germany,” I said. “Claim to be expressionists. Like loud trumpet solos.”

  “Oh, yes,” smiled Lorre. “Quite eccentric. And they now have a studio here?”

  “Miracle Pictures,” I said.

  “Mr. Lorre has a solution to your problem, Toby,” Jeremy said, his eyes scanning the auditorium, his body close to Lorre’s.

  “To what?” I asked. “I feel like Warner Baxter in 42nd Street. Someone shot the star and the crew is waiting for me to come up with Ruby Keeler.”

  “Why not,” said Lorre, “suggest to the Steistels that they use the actor who looks most like your dead man …”

  “Number Sixteen,” I said, “but his voice …”

  “… and the voice of the one who sounds most like your dead man or like me,” Lorre concluded.

  “Number …” I began.

  “Thirty-seven,” said Lorre.

  “Great idea,” I said, “but that doesn’t catch a killer. And Steinholtz seems to know you can identify him. But it beats hell out of me why he would want to keep from …”

  “No,” screamed a voice from the balcony behind us. Lorre, Jeremy, and I turned toward the sound and the turn was just enough to save Peter Lorre’s life.

  The shot came from the darkness of the balcony. It rocketed past Lorre and sent the drapery back as if it had been blown on by a hippo. I dropped to the floor and rolled off the stage and under the chairs in the first row as another shot came, and I watched Jeremy grab Lorre and roll backward off the stage.

  “You all right, Jeremy?” I yelled.

  “All right,” called Jeremy calmly. “Both of us are fine.”

  The shooter shuffled in the balcony and I heard a door above me open. I sat up, didn’t get shot at, and went for the fire exit on my left. I didn’t have a gun but I was close to something and I didn’t want to lose it. I went through the exit, found myself in an alley, and ran around to the front of the theater and into a crowd of Lorres who grabbed at me, asked questions, pleaded, and kept me from getting to the front entrance. Over their heads I saw a figure in a black raincoat dash out through the door of the Hitching Post. The figure’s collar was pulled up to hide his face. Under his arm was a flower box that could have held all kinds of weapons.

  “We’ll call the winner tomorrow,” I said. “Now if you’ll just let me …”

  The guy in the raincoat moved to a dark Chevy waiting near the curb as I struggled to get free. The driver of the Chevy pulled into traffic on Hollywood, squealed rubber in first gear and shot around onto Vine. I pulled a pair of hands from my sleeve, did a jump left worthy of the Galloping Ghost, and dashed around the corner of my car. I could see the Chevy half a block away, and knew that I could either catch it or attract enough attention to stop him. I could do that if I could drive my car, which I couldn’t. My left rear tire had been slashed.

  I went back into the theater and told Jeremy to stay close to Lorre for the next two hours, to go back to his office at the Farraday. Lorre was quiet. I expected him to be shaken, but the look on his face wasn’t fear. It was closer to anger. I didn’t push or pursue it. I found Wayne and promised him an extra five bucks for helping. He said he’d send Lorre the bill for the bullet holes in the screen. There wouldn’t be a charge for the curtain since the bullet holes couldn’t be seen.

  I went back out on Vine where Gunther Wherthman stood leaning on his cane.

  “You saved Peter Lorre’s life,” I told him as I opened the trunk of my Crosley.

  “I could think of nothing else to do but shout,” Gunther said softly. “I did not think I had the ability to overcome the shooter.”

  “You did fine,” I said.

  “And you were correct about the killer,” said Gunther as people walked past us. “Would you like some assistance in changing your tire?”

  “No, thanks, I’m used to dirty work,” I said.

  “Then, if you have no further need for my help, I shall return to my work,” Gunther said.

  “Gunther, I’m going to get Shelly out of there. If I don’t call you in two hours, call Jeremy at the Farraday and tell him where I am. Then you two can come in and rescue us.”

  “I think it would be much more reasonable to inform the police immediately,” he said, as I jacked up the car.

  “Much more reasonable,” I agreed.

  “But you do not plan to do so.”

  “I do not plan to do so,” I confirmed, turning the tire iron.

  There was nothing more to say. Gunther took off and I changed my tire and dropped the flat one off at No-neck Arnie’s to be fixed. Then I headed off to rescue Shelly.

  13

  “What’ll it be?” said Connie, the drooping owner of Connie’s on Beverly.

  “Coffee, a sinker, and some information,” I said, sitting down at the counter.

  Connie pushed herself away from the wall, put down her newspaper, and dropped her cigarette in an ashtray on the counter.

  “Coffee coming up,” she said, moving to the tarnished pot on the burner in front of me. “Pick your own sinker.”

  A pile of semistale doughnuts and something that looked as if it might once have been a pecan roll sat in a plate near my elbow. I picked the least deadly looking doughnut and put it on the edge of the saucer Connie placed in front of me with a cup of coffee.

  “What information you need?” she asked, coughing.

  “Eskian’s,” I said, breaking the doughnut in half and dunking it in the brown, steamy liquid. “How long he had his hardware store?”

  “Maybe eight years, something like that,” she said, folding her bony arms.

  “You know his kid?”

  “Robert?” S
ure,” she said. “Odd kid.”

  “What’s he look like?” I asked, munching on the last piece of soggy doughnut and reaching for another.

  She described him and I nodded.

  “One more question,” I said. “Is there another way into Eskian’s besides the front door?”

  Connie laughed and the laugh turned into a smoker’s hacking cough. I thought she might die on the counter. I reached over and patted her on the back. She recovered slowly.

  “You look too much like a crook to be one,” she said, standing back.

  “Not sure I buy your logic, Connie, but I’m not a crook. I’ve got a feeling a friend is somewhere in Eskian’s and he doesn’t want to be there.”

  “Never much liked Eskian or his kid,” she said. “Something creepy about them both, you know?”

  “I know,” I said, standing up and pulling change out of my pocket. “What’s the damage?”

  “Make it a dime,” she said. I dropped a quarter on the counter.

  She picked it up and put her tongue in her cheek thinking and said, “What the hell. Go through my kitchen, out the back door. You’ll see a fence. Other side of the fence is a little space, all concrete. You’ll see a couple of windows. That’s the back of Eskian’s.”

  “I owe you one, Connie,” I said, moving to the end of the counter.

  “Hey,” she said, retrieving her cigarette and newspaper, “if I had all the ones guys like you owe me, I’d be living on the beach.”

  I went through Connie’s kitchen, which was small, clean, and smelled like grilled onions. The wooden fence outside her rear door was chest-high and wobbly, but I climbed it without much trouble and dropped on the other side onto a small, cement-covered yard. Two full garbage cans stood near the fence. The windows were right where Connie said they would be. I tried the window on the right. The latch was rusty and would have snapped with a good pull, but I didn’t want any noise if I could help it. I moved to the other window. It was latched too, but the latch was just barely in place. I pushed the window up a touch with my fingertips and created a narrow gap pressing against the lock. I found a long, rusty bolt in one of the garbage cans and wedged it under the window. Using the bolt as a lever, I sweated the window up until it squealed past the latch.

  Now there was enough room under the window for my fingers. I lifted the window and looked inside. It was a windowless single-door storage room filled with barrels and sacks. I climbed through the window, pushed the latch out of the way, closed the window, and latched it before I turned into the room toward the door.

  I took my shoes off and padded across the room. The door opened without much noise. So far, so good. I was in a large basement room that smelled like leaking gasoline. There was one small window letting in enough light for me to make out the broad shadows of the room and to see a door about ten feet in front of me with light coming under it. I looked around for a weapon and found a barrel full of shovels. I pulled out one of the shovels as quietly as I could, put my shoes back on, and went for the door with the light under it.

  With the shovel in my left hand, I reached out with my right and opened the door slowly. There were no sounds inside the room. I stuck my head through and saw Sheldon Minck in the center of the room, tied in a chair. He was wearing a day-old beard and his dirty white smock. A single forty-watt bulb dangled on a frayed cord over his head.

  “Shel,” I whispered, hoisting the shovel in both hands like Stan Hack ready for a high inside pitch.

  Shelly looked up, twitched his nose, and squinted in my general direction.

  “Toby?” he shouted.

  “Shel, be quiet,” I said stepping into the room.

  The room held four wooden chairs, including the one Shelly was tied onto. In the corner to the right was a wooden stairway going up to a door that must lead to Eskian’s hardware sore.

  “Toby,” he yelled. “These are crazy people here. Sadists. They feed me candy and water and they don’t let me brush my teeth.”

  “I’ll get you out, Shel, but be quiet,” I said, watching the door at the top of the stairs and moving in front of Shelly.

  “I can’t see,” he said. “My glasses. They have my glasses.”

  “You need a bath, Shel,” I said, fishing in my pocket for the glasses.

  “I need a cigar,” he said. “My glasses.”

  I put the glasses on his nose, watched him open his eyes wide, and whispered, “I’ll get these ropes off and we’re out of here. Just be quiet, for God’s sake.”

  “Too late,” Shelly cried, looking over my shoulder.

  Before I could turn, something clanged off my skull. Shelly later confirmed that it was the shovel I had put down. It was probably a good thing that I was slow in turning. If I’d moved quicker, I’d probably have lost the rest of my nose. Instead, I merely lost consciousness.

  Koko the Clown danced in front of me and shook her finger to let me know I had made another mistake. I waited for Koko to lead me out of the hole with no sides I was floating in, but he just kept shaking his head. Finally, I just gave up, closed my eyes, and let Koko dance on the back of my brain.

  Somewhere in that darkness Mickey Mouse asked me if I was all right. I tried to tell Mickey that I could use a little help, but the words wouldn’t come out and he just kept asking. I opened my eyes and Bobby Parotti stood in front of me, shovel in hand, asking, no longer in a Mickey Mouse voice. “Are you all right?”

  I tried to move my hands. They were tied behind my back to the chair was I seated in. I tried to move my legs. They were tied.

  “Are you all right?” he repeated.

  “No, I’m not all right,” I groaned. “You hit me in the head with a shovel. You could have killed me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, putting down the shovel.

  “This is saving me?” asked Shelly on my right.

  I glanced at him. He was furiously trying to work his glasses back up his nose so he could see.

  “I had to,” said Bobby. “I want you to understand. You were really nice in the zoo. You helped me. I didn’t …”

  “Your father,” I said. “Where is he?”

  Bobby looked at the stairway with fear and then back at me.

  “He’ll kill you if he finds you here,” Bobby whispered.

  “Then don’t let him find us here,” I whispered back. “Let us go. You didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “If he comes and kills us, you’ll be a killer,” I said.

  “Yes,” agreed Shelly. “You’d be a killer.

  “Don’t say any more,” he said. “I’ve got to think.”

  “Think,” I said.

  “But think fast,” Shelly cried, looking at the door at the top of the stairs.

  “He’ll kill us, Bobby. You know he’ll kill us,” I said. “You want to see us all over the floor? He’ll make you clean it up.”

  “No more. I don’t want to hear any more,” Bobby shouted and ran out of the room through the same door I’d come in. The door slammed shut behind him.

  “Quick, Shel,” I whispered, pain throbbing in my head, “tip your chair over and slide over here next to me. I think you can get your mouth high enough to bite these ropes. But hurry.”

  “Bite the ropes?” Shelly groaned. “You know what that would do to my teeth? I’m a dentist. What kind of example would it be for my patients for God’s sake if I went around chewing on dirty ropes?”

  “Shelly,” I said through clenched teeth, “they could come back and kill us.”

  “Let me think about it,” Shelly said.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Who knows? A while. An hour, maybe more. Time passes so fast when you’re having fun.”

  “You’ve got no time to think,” I said. “Shit.”

  I tipped my chair over and it clattered against the cement. My cheek hit the floor and I almost went out again but I looked over at the doors. No one came running in. I crawled slowly in agony toward
Shelly and worked my way behind him. My mouth was just high enough to reach the rope on his wrists.

  “I’ll fix your teeth for nothing, Toby. Honest to God,” Shelly said. “I swear it. Free X rays.”

  “I’ll settle for your thanks,” I said. “And a complete cleaning of the office the way you promised.”

  I dug my teeth into the rope.

  “I just cleaned the place,” wailed Shelly.

  “A month ago,” I said, spitting out hemp. I bit furiously for about a minute and said, “Pull, Shel. I think you can break …”

  And Sheldon gave a pull that tore the last strands just as the door at the top of the stairs clattered open.

  “Do something,” Shelly screamed.

  “You’re the one with his hands free,” I reminded him. “I’m tied up on the floor with a broken skull.”

  “What the heck is going, going on down here?” Paul Eskian said angrily, hurrying down the stairs with a rifle in his hands. “You,” he said pointing at Shelly. “Just you sit, sit, sit there.”

  “I’m sitting,” Sheldon cried, and put his hands on his lap.

  Eskian moved over to me and pulled me up.

  “Bobby,” he called.

  Bobby came running back into the room and picked up the shovel, ready to bash me again.

  “Bobby,” Eskian said, “why didn’t you come and get, get me when he woke up like I told, told, told you to?”

  “You’re not going to kill them,” Bobby said.

  “No,” Eskian said sarcastically. “I’m going to untie them and let them go so they, they, they can tell the police and I can be hanged. Bobby, if we kill, kill them I’m safe. You’re safe.”

  “What are you people talking about?” Shelly squealed.

  “It’s simple, Shel,” I said. “Paul Eskian here has a hardware store upstairs. His real name is Steinholtz. He’s a former Nazi. That’s his son, Robert, who uses the name Bobby Parotti because he wants to be in movies. He probably made up the name.”

  “It’s my mother’s name,” Bobby said.

  “Peters …” Eskian began.

  “Let me finish explaining to Shelly,” I said, stalling in the hope that Jeremy would be momentarily bursting through the door. “He should at least know why he’s dying. You can give me a hand by filling in when I miss something.”