He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) (2 page)

“Hi,” I said with my most friendly grin. “My name’s Peters, Toby Peters. Miss West is expecting me.”

I took a few steps closer and concluded that neither of the two was giving off the spark that signaled intelligence or even animal cleverness. Neither acted as if I had spoken. One was blond. The other had curly black hair. I’d never seen such exaggerated muscles. They looked strangely top-heavy, like Bluto in a Popeye cartoon. They were probably slow, and I could probably take both of them by staying out of their grasp and running a lot. But I had been fooled in the past by those probabilities and wound up more than once (maybe a dozen times if you want a more accurate count) in need of medical help.

“Are you two in there?” I asked, stepping in front of them. “I can come back when you’re home.”

One of them, the dark one, did something with his full lower lip that could have been a sneer or a smile, or maybe he still had breakfast toast stuck in his perfect white teeth. Since my teeth are neither perfect nor very white, and since I am almost as old as Mae West, I had the urge to push the pair. My world sometimes seems an endless series of encounters with huge men guarding secrets and doors. Each time I meet them I know I have to find out what is beyond that door or go down trying. Hell, the most they can give me is life.

“It’s been very nice chatting with you, Dizzy and Daffy,” I said, stepping between them, “but I’ve got some business inside with the lady of the house.”

The dark one put an arm out to block me, and I stuck my hand out to push it away. It didn’t push. In fact, I almost fell.

“Now all I need is to find the switch to turn you two off.” I grinned my most evil grin, but it didn’t seem to affect them.

“Your sister eats worms,” I tried. No response. “What does it take to get a rise out of you guys?”

“Something you have not got,” came a dark voice from the doorway, and out stepped Mae West, but it took me a blink to recognize her. Her voice was the surest touchstone. The woman before me wearing a frilly purple dress had neck-length brown hair, not blond, and was barely on the good side of plump. She gave off a heavy perfume that smelled like a flower I couldn’t place and looked at me with amused violet eyes and her hands on her hips.

“Welcome to Paradise,” she said, stepping back. “It’s a little gaudy and overstocked, but we call it home.”

I followed her in with Diz and Daf behind me. A monkey ran across the hallway in front of us, and Mae West nodded. The blond giant hurried after the monkey who had disappeared, heading toward the rear of the house.

“You cut out the tongues of all your servants?” I asked with a smile as she led me into a living room.

“They’ve got tongues,” she said, sitting elegantly in a white chair. “But they use them for better things than idle conversation.”

We looked at each other for a few seconds, and I glanced around, waiting for the next verbal game, which I was now convinced I was bound to lose. The room was white and gold. The carpet, drapes, and even the piano were white. The Louis-the-something furniture was gold. She had seated herself beneath an oil painting of a nude reclining. The nude was a somewhat thinner and younger Mae West. The much plumper version was now semi-reclining in the same position with a smile. Dizzy and Daffy had disappeared.

“I don’t think I can go on at this level,” I said. “I’m used to quiet things like bullets flying, beatings, murders. I came to help, not to lose a verbal match. I know when I’m outclassed.”

Her laugh was deep as she sat up and shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been playing Mae West for so long, I don’t know where the playing stops. You want a drink?”

“Sure, Pepsi if you have it.”

A few minutes later the blond giant brought in a tray with two drinks. I took the one that was surely Pepsi. She took the dark brown one without the bubbles.

“Steak juice,” she explained. “Energy, few calories. Bottoms up.”

She drank about half of the juice and then told me her tale. It was pretty much as Phil had set it up. The manuscript was missing. It had been taken not from the ranch but from her apartment at the Ravenswood Hotel near Paramount a few days before.

“He’s a real fruit cake,” she said, sipping her steak juice. “And I’ve known some fruits and cakes in my ample career, if you get my meaning.”

I got her meaning as she told me that the manuscript contained enough to cause a few scandals.

“It was just a draft,” she explained. “I was going to do some cutting, change some names to protect the guilty, though none of it is refragable, and try it out on a few publishers. Now I just want it back, but I think our friendly neighborhood thief is after more than money.”

“Like what?” I asked, finishing the Pepsi.

“Even under the circumstances I would like with impudicity to delude myself that I may be the object of his esteem,” she said. “But I’m afraid his intentions are strictly honorable. I can read men, and this guy had something destructive on what little is left of his mind.”

She had already set up the show for that night and told the thief to come and bring the manuscript. She, in turn, would have an envelope with five grand. The isolated nature of the place, she thought, would make it ideal for keeping him from getting away.

“He’s going to be here alone?”

“Not quite,” she laughed. “A few of my more intimate friends will be here. We’re having a Mae West party. You get in free if you’re dressed like me.” Her smile was broad, showing teeth that Shelly Minck would have marveled at.

“There’s one catch,” she added. “Only men are allowed.”

“So you’re going to have a houseful of men dressed like you, and I’m supposed to find the one who’s the thief and nail him?”

“You got it,” she said, plunking down her glass with just a brown residue of steak juice remaining.

“You have parties like this often?”

“Since I came out here,” she said. “I like men of all shapes, sizes, and persuasion. I even wrote a play back in ’29 called
The Drag
. Cast of forty transvestites. Did pretty well, though we couldn’t find a theater to take us in New York.”

“Too bad,” I sympathized. “Anything else I should know about tonight?”

“Just be prepared for any—thing.” I could swear her eyes roamed down my pants. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got to do my exercises. Rollo will show you to a room where you can listen to the radio, take a nap or a bath, and look at yourself in the mirror till lunch. One final question.”

“Thirty bucks a day and expenses,” I said, “but this one is on the house.”

“Thirty bucks a day it’ll be,” she said. “I don’t take things on the house. The house always decides it wants payment in trade. Besides, that wasn’t the question.”

“Sorry,” I said, rising with her. She looked deeply into my eyes as she stepped in front of me.

“How is Phil doing?”

“He’s a cop with a family, a lot of bills, and a big stick.”

“I know all about the big stick” she said.

“He uses it to break heads,” I said. “Like Teddy Roosevelt.”

She shrugged and walked slowly out of the room. With her departure the temperature dropped suddenly and the monkey came scurrying in. He was a small thing who paused to show his teeth when I reached down to bar his way. I changed my mind, and massive Rollo came lumbering in pursuit.

The rest of the day I checked out the grounds, made one important phone call, and listened to Dizzy and Daffy galumpfing after the monkey. I leafed through a book on yoga, one on life after death, and another by Sigmund Freud.

Sometime early in the evening, the first guests began to arrive. I tightened my tie, put on my jacket, and came out to see what was happening. The first Mae Wests were fair to middling imitations. The real Mae West was pretty good in her blond wig, a tight dress, and a floppy yellow hat with a white feather.

My own invited guest arrived after the first batch, and I placed him where he might be most helpful and least conspicuous.

By nine the place was full of Mae Wests, and Dizzy and Daffy were busy serving drinks and sandwiches. Each guest who didn’t know was told the rules: no smoking and no groping.

Just before ten I made my way to the real West, who was holding court on the triumphs of Catherine the Great.

“I was born for that role boys,” she said to the assembled group, resembling nothing that could pass for “boys.” They nodded in agreement as she excused herself and joined me in a corner.

“Well,” I whispered.

“Nothing yet,” she sighed. “I’ve got the envelope up my sleeve and maybe something else too.” Her eyebrows went up suggestively.

“Don’t you think about anything else?”

“Not in public,” she said, reaching up to touch what was left of my nose. “Remind me to ask you sometime how you got that proboscis.” She sauntered away on the arm of a tall, thin Mae West who had trouble walking on his white high heels.

The contact came just before midnight, and I almost missed it. The Chinese comic who wanted to be discovered by Mae West, Richard Horn, was telling me about the fight the Chinese were putting up against the Japanese somewhere in Manchuria. It was hard to take him seriously in his costume, but he was serious. So was the signal across the room from Mae West. I pushed away from Hom and made my way through a sea of girdles.

“I’ve got the book,” she said, holding it up. “He’s got the money. Said he wasn’t through with me. Left by the back door.”

“What’s he look like?” I said, anxious to move.

“Like me,” she said. “A bit too much makeup, and he hasn’t got the voice down. Frilly dress, gold with—”

I was off toward the rear. I knew who she meant. I had spotted the guy earlier. He had looked a bit strange—darting blue eyes and a white beaded purse big enough to hold a manuscript or a packet containing five thousand bucks. But since everyone in the place looked strange, I had filed him away. Now I was after him.

I danced past a short Mae West who was saying, “Sure I’d do a Gene Autry, if the price was right,” and skipped down the hall.

There was no one in the back rooms. I went through the kitchen where Dizzy and Daffy were busily making little sandwiches. The monkey was in a cage on the kitchen table chattering at his captors.

“Someone just go through here?” I said.

The blond one nodded and the monkey showed his teeth. I went out. There was a slight rain falling, so the sky didn’t give me much help. The kitchen window light didn’t penetrate very far, but the sound of someone moving through nearby bushes gave me a good idea of the direction I wanted. I plunged in, feeling the new suit tear as I pushed through the shrubs. Whoever was ahead heard me coming and took off. I followed the sound and remembered the layout. He was heading for the pool out back. I leaped over the bushes, falling on my face, got up and ran to head him off.

By the time I hit poolside, the rain was coming down heavily and pinging off the tile edges. Two lights showed the clear bottom of the pool, and I huddled behind a bamboo table and chairs as the sound of someone coming through the bushes grew louder. I could hear someone panting and, I could swear, humming “Three Blind Mice.”

When the figure stepped into the clearing in front of the pool, I made my move.

“Hold it right there,” I said showing my .38 automatic.

Holding it right there was a rain-soaked figure in a wilting hat. Even in the lack of light I could see he was grinning, which gave me a chill the rain couldn’t accomplish. What the hell did he have to grin about? He’d just been caught.

“Just step forward a few feet very slowly.”

As he stepped forward, I moved around the pool, wiping rain from my eyes. His makeup was running and I had the feeling I was watching some horror movie or seeing an episode of “Lights Out” come to life. The monster’s face was melting, but the monster was smiling.

“Now,” I said gently, “just drop the bag and keep on coming with your hands up.” He came. We were about ten feet apart at the edge of the pool when he hissed and dropped the bag.

“I take it,” he said in a high-pitched Mae West imitation, “that this means we are not friends.”

“You’ve got a sense of humor,” I grinned back. “I like that in a nut with a foot on his throat. Now, we’re just going to walk very slowly back to the house.”

He didn’t move.

“Who are you?” he said, staring at me through soggy mascara. I was sure he had switched to a W. C. Fields imitation.

“Name is Peters,” I said. “Private detective. Who are you?”

It was pouring and our voices were muffled. He didn’t answer. The chill hit me and I yelled, “Let’s move.”

He didn’t move.

“You want to get shot in drag?” I shouted. “Move. This is a gun. It shoots real bullets and makes holes in people.”

He didn’t move. I shot twice well over his head into the rainstorm, but he still didn’t move. He had me. It was either shoot him or find some other way to bring him in. He turned his back on me and stooped to pick up the purse.

I shoved the gun back in my holster under my soaking jacket, leaped for him and slipped, just managing to grab his stockinged ankle before he reached the purse. He went off-balance, fell on his back, and kicked at me with a spiked heel. The heel caught me on top of the head and his voice, this time as Cary Grant, said, “That will be just about enough of that Mr. Peters, if you please.”