Smart Moves Read online

  I leaned back against the wall and watched Shelly stagger to the one small upholstered chair in the room. He sat with a thud and pointed to his neck. “You did this.”

  “Heredity and overeating did that,” I said.

  “I mean the marks,” he cried, pointing furiously. “You tried to strangle me.”

  “What are you doing here, Shell?”

  “I could be marked for life,” he rambled on. “Have to wear a scarf like … like …”

  “Captain Midnight?” I asked.

  “Captain Midnight’s on the radio,” Shelly said in exasperation. “Who the hell knows if he wears a scarf?”

  “He’s a pilot. Pilots like to have a scarf billowing out when they ride in an open-cockpit plane,” I said. “What are you doing here, Shell?”

  “Water,” he gasped. “I need water.”

  I got him a glass of water, which he took and greedily gulped down.

  “More,” he said.

  I got him another glass.

  “More,” he said again.

  “No more, Shell. What are you doing here?”

  “I was taking a nap, an innocent nap. I just flew in. I’m tired. I came to see a friend, take a nap and what does he do? He assaults me. Isadora Duncan, she was the one with a scarf. It got tangled up in something.”

  “How did you get in my room? And how did you know I was at this hotel, in New York?”

  He reached into his pocket for an answer and came up with one of his cigars and a wooden match instead. He coughed a few times, lit it, and belched out a plume of grey smoke. It made him feel much better. “I called when I got to the airport,” he explained. “Asked what room you were in. When I got here, I went to the desk, said I was you, told the guy the room number and said I lost the key. He gave me a spare. I tried to call you first but you weren’t here.”

  He sucked at the cigar, an overgrown baby with a brown pacifier. The room was beginning to smell like his office.

  “What are you doing here? I keep asking the same question in something like English and I get …”

  “Meeting,” he said. “Well, sort of a convention of dentists. New techniques in dental treatment. Over at the Savoy-Plaza on Fifth Avenue.”

  I kicked off my shoes and climbed on the bed. Shelly smoked and watched and I asked a reasonable question. “And Mildred didn’t mind? Just said, ‘Sheldon, take two or three hundred bucks, get on a plane, go to New York and have a good time’?”

  “It was Mildred’s idea,” Shelly said pointing his cigar at me. I responded by getting my .38 down and pointing it at him. “That’s not funny, Toby.”

  My detective experience told me that if Mildred Minck was not only letting her husband go to New York alone, but giving him money for the trip, her motive was not one of good will. I considered that Mildred might be having an affair with the plumber or milkman, but I knew Mildred too well to imagine her approaching or being approached by any man I had ever seen. It would bear further thought, but first I had to deal with my chubby and unwelcome guest.

  “The war,” Shelly said, “is great, marvelous.”

  “We’re all enjoying it,” I said, sitting on the bed and checking the pistol.

  “I don’t mean that. I don’t mean that,” he said. “The war is terrible, terrible, but war dentists are bringing back new experience, new gadgets are being invented that we can use on the home front.”

  “War dentists?” I said, putting down my weapon and removing my jacket to strap on my shoulder holster.

  “You know, Toby, you know. Damn, my neck still hurts. You should be more careful,” he said, searching his pink neck for sore spots.

  “Well, Shell,” I said, adjusting my holster and inserting my pistol, “it’s been great talking to you. Have a nice time at the dental disaster meeting and I’ll see you back in L.A.”

  “What? What?” Shelly got himself out of the chair after three times. “I’ve got some time. I can help with whatever you’re working on. I’ve helped before, remember?”

  I took the dentist’s arm and guided him toward the door. “Remember our agreement,” I reminded him. “I don’t pull teeth and you don’t shoot people.”

  “You’re going to shoot somebody?” he asked around the cigar he had stuck back in his mouth. “I knew it. The holster, the gun. You’ve got a case here.”

  “No, I’m on vacation.” I shoved him to the door and got it open.

  “Not for one minute do I think you’re on vacation here,” he said. “Not one minute. Not even a second.”

  “Goodbye, Sheldon,” I said, ushering him into the hall.

  “Not even a lunch together? A breakfast? A show? We could have great times here, Toby. I know New York, I went to school here once.”

  He looked pathetic, a round lump in the hall all dressed up with no place to go but a dental convention. I almost felt sorry for him, but I remembered the times he had almost got me killed and my sympathy faded. Then I got an idea. “Where are you staying, Shell?”

  “Me?”

  “No,” I sighed. “Paul Muni.”

  He looked around for Paul Muni but there was no one in the hall but him and me.

  “I’m not staying anywhere yet,” he bleated. “My suitcase is in your room.”

  “How about we share a room right here in the Taft?” I asked, putting on my best smile and holding the door open for him to return. Carmichael had given me till midnight, but I needed more time than that to work on Albanese.

  Shelly took a tentative step back toward me, his cigar held out like a protective sword. “Share?”

  “Right. You go down, get a double room in your name, and we share. I’ll even pay for the room.”

  Shelly adjusted his glasses and stepped forward to squint at me. “You are not an easy person to understand, Toby. Do you know that? Are you aware of that?”

  “It’s part of my attraction,” I said. “Let’s get your suitcase. I’ll pack. If you have trouble getting a room, tell them you’re FDR’s dentist and he’s planning to stop by and see you.”

  “They won’t believe that,” he said, following me back into the room. “Hey, there’s a hole in your window?”

  “You noticed. Another reason to get another room.”

  “And I can help you with this case you’re on,” he said, hurrying over to the far side of the bed to retrieve his case.

  “We’ll see, Shell. We’ll see.”

  While Shelly went off, I put on a dry pair of socks and my last clean shirt, packed, and checked my watch. It still didn’t tell me anything, I called the desk and found out that it was getting close to six. It was still dark outside but the thunder had stopped. Maybe it wasn’t raining. I didn’t know how far it was to the place where Albanese was rehearsing. I needed an umbrella.

  Shelly came back ten minutes later, pink and glowing and dangling a key in front of my nose.

  “I got two of them.” He tossed the key to me. “I told them I was Roosevelt’s polio therapist. See, I can think on my feet too.”

  “You sure can, Shell. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t take Carmichael up on his offer to pay my bill. I wasn’t through at the Taft. Carmichael had laid down a challenge. Besides, Povey had taken his shot at me here and Albanese was staying here. I got a receipt and checked out after leaving a message at the desk for Carmichael. It was simple: “Watch your back and your pension. I checked out.” I went out the front door. It was drizzling but lightly. I went around the block, went into the side entrance, and took the service elevator up to the twelfth floor. When I went into Room 1234 I could hear Shelly singing off-key and loud. I dropped my suitcase on one of the beds and looked into the bathroom. Shelly was sitting in the tub smoking and scrubbing the top of his head with Ivory soap. He was also singing “When you’re in love with New York” to the tune of “Begin the Beguine.”

  “I’ve got to go out for a few hours, Shell. When I come back, we can go out for dinner.”

  “Chinese,” he shouted. Suds fl
owed down his forehead covering his glasses. “The native food of our allies.”

  His voice was raised in song as I closed the door.

  7

  The rain had stopped but the sky was dark when I stepped out on Seventh Avenue. The Taft doorman checked my clothes and motioned for a cab. I got in and told the driver where I wanted to go.

  “That’s near the Village,” he said, shooting into traffic.

  “Right,” I said.

  He took the corner of Fiftieth, almost killing a guy who looked like Herbert Hoover. Maybe it was Herbert Hoover.

  “I’m not in a hurry,” I said.

  “Then you’re the only one these days who ain’t,” said the cabbie. “You want to know what’s wrong with the world?” he went on, looking over his shoulder at me, instead of at the traffic we were heading for on Fifth Avenue. He had a sagging face, covered with bristly white hairs, to compensate for the lack of hair on his head. He squinted at me painfully as if I were the sun.

  “No,” I said. “Just drive.”

  “A philosopher,” he sighed with a giant shrug, turning around just as we were about to run a light and collide with a milk truck caught in the intersection on Fifth. He hit the brakes and turned to me again. “What’s the matter, Jackson? You think you can’t learn anything? You think you’re too old? I’m sixty-five. Can you believe that?”

  “I’m seventy,” I said.

  “I can’t believe that,” he said, giving me a sour stare. “Hey, you wanna talk sense or you wanna talk sense?”

  “I don’t want to talk at all,” I said, pointing over his shoulder at the light that had just turned green. The guy in the car behind us hit his horn, and the guy behind him hit his horn, and the traffic tied up behind us all the way to Detroit hit their horns, but my cabbie didn’t move.

  “Hold your horses,” he shouted over my shoulder through the rear window. There was no way anyone outside could have heard him. Only I was given the chance to go stone deaf. “Can you imagine that, Jackson? The Krauts decide to hit us tonight, they can come in on the noise. Patriotism, where is it? What happened to it?”

  “Drive,” I said. “Now.”

  I can be very persuasive when my nose is almost touching someone else’s and the scent of breakfast overpowers that of my tooth powder. He drove, making a sharp right, and kept quiet for about ten blocks.

  “Kids,” he mumbled as he raced through lights, missed elusive pedestrians, and banged the heels of his hands on the steering wheel. I didn’t answer him so he repeated, “Kids.”

  “Kids,” I said.

  “Yeah, whether you like it or not kids are what’s wrong with this world,” he bellowed. “Am I right or am I right?”

  “You’re right,” I said, wondering how many more blocks we had to go and trying not to look at the cabbie. I watched the stores roll by, their reflections in the jigsaw puddles of rain on the street, pedestrians leaping over or dashing around the water traps.

  “I’ll say I’m right,” the cabbie whispered to himself. “Kids. They go around saying ‘solid’ and ‘jive’ and when they like something, you know what they say?”

  “I like that,” I tried.

  “I like … Funny. No, they say ‘murder.’ Does that make you feel like puking right in the street? I ask you.”

  “I’m offended,” I said.

  “Sure you are. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “What about the kids in the army?” I asked, trying to catch some addresses so I could figure out where we were. We shot past 1023.

  “Oh, the kids in the army. Well, you’re gonna get technical on me, huh, Jackson? The kids in the army,” he told God, his eyes looking upward through the roof of the cab. God would understand and support him.

  “I’m not talking about them,” he spat. “I’m talking … here we are. Two bucks even.”

  I looked around and didn’t see anything, no people on the street. There was a doorway just opposite where the cab had stopped, lit by a single bulb. I began to think that Albanese had given me a fake address. “Hold it,” I said, getting out.

  “No, you don’t,” the cabbie said, reaching for something in his glove compartment. I knew what I kept in my glove compartment.

  “I may not be staying,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Here’s the two bucks. You want a tip? You wait.”

  He shut up, took the two bucks, and I got out and slammed the door. He took off without the tip, but—like Santa—as he drove out of sight he pulled down his window and shouted, “I hope they cut off your gazingas in this neighborhood is what I hope.”

  Above the light bulb’s dark metal shade I could make out the words BERT WILLIAMS THEATRE. There was a single wooden door under the light. I turned the handle and went in. A stairway, worn wooden steps. I went up it toward the sound of voices. It reminded me of a gym I knew back in Los Angeles. At the top of the steps of the L.A. gym sat an old pug who knew how many letters there were in every president’s name. After he collected his dime, he’d let you work out or watch the war rejects waltz a round or two. There was no pug at the top of the stairs, just a dark open floor, uncarpeted and smelling a little moldy. A partly open door about twenty feet ahead let out enough light so I could see a darkened box office to my left and some benches and ash trays to the right. There were posters on the wall. I could only make out the one nearest the open door. It read IN DAHOMEY and had two black stick figures dancing. There was something sad about it but I couldn’t tell what.

  And then, from the dark shadow near the inner door a voice came, deep and a little familiar. It scared hell out of me.

  “Arise, black Vengeance, from the hollow hell!

  Yield up, O Love, thy crown and hearted throne

  To tyrannous Hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,

  For ’tis of aspics’ tongues.”

  “Hey,” I said, looking up for someone in the shadows, “take it easy.” I let my hand ease up to my jacket, ready to go for my holster, though I had no reason to expect anything but disaster if I had to go for my pistol. About half the time I’ve used my gun, I was the one who got shot.

  “O, blood, blood, blood!” the deep voice answered as a figured moved forward out of the shadows, a sword in his hand catching the first glint of light.

  “Hey,” I said, my hand inside my jacket touching the reassuring pebbled steep of my .38, “I’m looking for Alex Albanese, not trouble.”

  The man with the deep voice stepped into a thin yellow path of light from inside the theater. I could still see only his dark outline and the sword in his right hand.

  “What?” he said.

  “No trouble,” I countered, holding up a hand. “Just tell Albanese I’m here.”

  He stepped further into the light, and I could see that he was a couple of inches over six feet and wearing dark trousers and a grey turtleneck shirt with long sleeves. He looked as if he could take care of himself even without the sword.

  “There’s a rehearsal going on here,” he said. “This theater is closed to everyone but cast and crew.” He took a step to his right and hit a switch. A trio of bulbs tinkled on overhead and I recognized the man with the sword.

  “I saw Sanders of the River,” I said, letting my hands go back to my sides. “The Emperor Jones, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paul Robeson said. “I try not to see them whenever possible. I must have startled you. I was rehearsing some lines in the corner when you came in. Who did you ask for?”

  “Albanese, Alex Albanese,” I said. “He’s in your cast.”

  Robeson looked at me and at his sword before answering. “Oh, the Clown,” he said.

  “That’s him,” I agreed.

  “No,” Robeson corrected with a deep laugh. “He plays the Clown. Are you his agent?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a little complicated. I’m working for Albert Einstein and …”

  The door to the theater swung open and a woman stuck her head out and looked at us. Then she said, “Paul, I think we’re ready
to try again.”

  “Just a moment,” Robeson said, holding his hand up without turning to face the woman. His eyes were fixed on me. She turned and went back into the theater.

  Robeson walked over to the small table in the corner, placed his sword on it, and sat on its edge. He was somewhere in his forties, but age hadn’t caught up with him as it seemed to be doing with me. I had his attention and I explained the threats to Einstein, the trail to Albanese, the shots through my door, Gurko Povey. I left out Pauline Santiago and Frank Sinatra.

  Robeson folded his arms, shook his head, and when I finished looked to his right, where no one was standing, his eyes on the In Dahomey poster. “Do you know who Bert Williams was?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

  “‘Nobody,’” I answered.

  He looked at me, his eye movement followed slowly by his head, a gesture I figured he was trying out for Othello. “Nobody,” he said sadly.

  “‘That’s Life,’” I said.

  A smile touched the corner of Robeson’s broad mouth. “You have a sense of humor.”

  “‘I Wasn’t Prepared for That,’” I answered, and Robeson laughed, a deep laugh that rolled like a song. “That about exhausts the Williams songs I know.”

  “More than most, Negro or white,” he said. “Should I trust you, Mr.…”

  “Peters, Toby Peters. I don’t know. Why not give Einstein a call and ask him?”

  “I will,” he said. “Spies, murder attempts. It sounds like Shakespeare.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said, “I’m more a Bert Williams type.”

  “No,” sighed Robeson, “I’m the Bert Williams type. Did you know that Williams was forced to put on blackface to perform in Broadway shows, a Negro forced to put on blackface? That’s what I had to do when I was in those movies. Oh, not literal blackface, but the mask of the noble savage. I’m sorry, I’m a bit weary. You know that Einstein and I are doing a benefit on Sunday to raise money for refugee children?”