He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) (9 page)

“Maybe even you?” she said, turning to me from the stove with the coffeepot in her hand.

“Maybe. And maybe I’m doing it for my fee and for a friend. But maybe or no maybes, your old man will be a lot better off if I find him before he gets in more trouble. Delores, believe me, he is in trouble, but not in it so far that he can’t be eased out of it with some help from you and me.”

It was warm in the kitchen, but Delores pulled her robe across her chest with her free hand and shivered as she stepped forward to pour me a cup and one for herself. Then she sat down again, placing the pot on a wooden trivet. She was working herself up to say something, and I wanted to give her room.

I poured a few spoons of sugar in my cup, put my open palm over the cup to feel the moist warmth, and took a sip.

“He’s here,” she said softly, so softly that I didn’t hear it the first time, or maybe I didn’t believe what I heard.

“What?” I said, leaning forward.

“Here. He’s here in the other room. In the living room. We were waiting for my mother to come back to decide what we’d do. Harold’s not sick or napping. He and my father are trying to work things out, see what …”

I got up slowly, very slowly.

“I think I’ll just go in and join the conversation,” I said gently. “No trouble. Why don’t you just sit there and finish your coffee. I’ll introduce myself to Grayson. Your father and I have already met, I believe.”

She nodded in resigned agreement, her shoulders slumping down as if she had done a day of hard labor.

I walked to the doorway leading into the house from the kitchen and considered taking off my shoes to keep from making noise, but every time I have removed my shoes on a case things have got worse instead of better. I moved on. There were no voices ahead of me, but something was creaking. The hallway I found myself in carried on the lacquered dark wood motif. A print on the wall showed the driving of the golden spike. Leland Stanford glared down on me and the future of the West. To my right I found the living room, but no one was in it. There were two sofas, both oversize and masculine brown, a grand piano, and a rocking chair. The rug was an Indian design with a pattern in the center that looked to me like a snarling demon.

Across the hall opposite the living room were three doors, all closed. Still no voices. I tried the first door. It opened and showed me a bedroom, bright and orange, a woman’s room, probably Delores’s. There was a faint pleasant odor of scented soap or perfume.

The next door was partly open. I stepped in. It was a much larger bedroom than Delores’s. In one corner stood a desk. In another a dresser and twin beds beyond which was a view of the town through a big floor-to-ceiling window. The beds were made up with brown Indian spreads. I could see the design clearly on one bed. The other was obscured by the body of the man on top of it.

The man was gray-haired, around sixty, wearing a heavy blue flannel robe and a long knife in his chest. His arms were spread out and his eyes were wide and surprised. Something creaked from the hall, and I grabbed for a portable radio on the dresser. I swung around, ready to clip Jeffrey Ressner with the white Philco, and stopped just short of clobbering Delores, whose mouth went open in fear.

“Back up,” I said, putting my free hand out and placing the radio back on the dresser.

“Where is …” she began and saw the body on the bed. I put out both hands to catch her if she fell, but kept my eyes on the doorway. Ressner was almost certainly still in the house.

“God,” she whispered.

“That’s Grayson?” I whispered, pushing her gently out of the room.

Her eyes were still fixed on the body, but she nodded her confirmation. When I had her around the corner into the living room, her eyes met mine and her head shook a dumb no no no no of disbelief.

“Get on the phone and call the local police,” I said very quietly. “Can you do that?”

She didn’t answer but kept scanning my face for understanding.

“Can you do that? I’m going to find your father and keep him from any other trouble. Now make that call. O.K.?”

She agreed with her eyes and looked around the familiar room, wondering where the phone was.

“He’s dead?”

“Dead,” I agreed and went for the front door. I was after my .38. Maybe I’d also grab the bronze Alcatraz and my bag of groceries. Ressner was not my run-of-the-dice killer. If he was the same guy I’d tangled with at Mae West’s and it looked as if he were, I wasn’t sure what it would take to stop him.

Before I could get to my car, the sound of an engine firing up came from behind me. The dark Packard parked at the side of the house came to life and kicked dust and sand as it shot in front of me. I didn’t see the driver clearly, but his shape was about what I remembered and expected of Ressner.

I ran around the side of my Buick, climbed in, closed the door, and took off. Ressner took the road I’d come on, the only road, and he really hit the floorboard. He came close to running down an old couple holding floppy hats on with one hand and drinking murky Poodle piss with the other.

At the main road, he turned toward Palmdale on two wheels and took off, wobbling. On the open road, my old Buick couldn’t keep up with the Packard, not even close, but I dogged him. If I could stay within a mile or two, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and if he hit civilization, driving that fast he’d pick up a surly cop or two. By now Delores, if she had found the phone, had called what passed for police in Plaza Del Lago. I had no idea of what they might do, but I didn’t count on their moving quickly. I dogged on, shoving my .38 in my jacket pocket, where it knocked against my hip until I had to take it out and put it on the seat next to me. Ressner was still in sight, going seventy or eighty down the road. My .38 flew up in the air when I hit a rock or a prairie rat and almost took my right eye. I grabbed the gun in midair and put it in my grocery bag.

We were in sight of Dot’s Dixie Gas Station when my Buick died a terrible death. It chugged, gurgled, and belched something that sounded like “The hell with it.” Metal dropped out of the front of the car and skidded with the undercarriage shooting sparks into the dusk. I lost control. The carton of milk flew out of the bag to see what was happening and exploded against the front windshield, spraying me and ending any chance I had of coming to a reasonable halt. The car barreled off the road and hit something solid.

I flew into the backseat and agreed with the car. We had been through a lot together. The hell with it. I shut my eyes and waited for my dream companion, Koko the Clown, to lead me out of nowhere, but he didn’t come.

When my eyes opened, I was looking into the pale face of Dot’s mongrel dog, which was neither stuffed nor dead. He had rotten breath, like all dogs.

The room was small and filled with spare auto parts and small animal cages. The cages contained newts, snakes, and a few field mice. There was a small window in the corner, and beyond it was darkness.

“You ain’t dead,” said Dot, his hands in his pockets looking down at me.

“Thanks,” I answered sitting up.

“Car’s dead though,” he said, handing me a bottle of Pepsi, which was just what I needed. I sat up, sipped it, and wondered what I had broken this time, but nothing hurt very much. In fact, my back felt better than it had before the crash.

I looked at the flannel shirt and torn pants Dot had put on me and said, “Thanks.”

“Trade,” Dot said, filling a pipe that appeared magically from his fist. “Those duds, the Pepsi, a meal, and a phone call for the wreck.”

I gurgled the Pepsi and thought about it.

“You can keep the Wheaties, the gun, and the statue of Alcatraz,” he said.

“A deal,” I agreed, toasting him with the Pepsi.

The deal completed, Dot lit his pipe, patted the mongrel, who panted appreciatively, and went to the hot plate in the corner, where something was cooking. He came over with a bowl of chili and some Wonder Bread. I spooned down the chili, sopped up what was left with the bread, and downed the last of my Pepsi before trying to stand. I did a pretty good job and found that I was thinking again.

“My suit,” I said. “And your phone.”

“Suit’s in a box by the front door with the gun, Alcatraz, and Wheaties. Suit’s not dry. Needs some cleaning, though Thomas licked some of the milk from it when I pulled you out.”

“Thanks,” I said, going for the phone.

He waved his pipe at me and said, “Used to know Sergeant York, Alvin York back in the last war.”

“That a fact?” I said, trying to raise the operator.

“Fact,” he said with satisfaction as he took the empty chili bowl away.

Shelly had left the office. No answer. I could have called him at home, but that would have meant the possibility of talking to his wife, Mildred, who, when we were at our best, refused to speak to or about me. I was definitely a bad influence on Shelly. Jeremy owned no car. I could have called Phil, but that would mean driving all the way back to Hollywood with him. I didn’t think I could take my brother for that long, and I knew from experience that he couldn’t take me.

So I called Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse and prayed that Mrs. Plaut would not answer. She did.

“Mrs. Plaut,” I shouted. “This is Toby, Toby Peters. Is Mr. Wherthman there. Gunther Wherthman.”

“Plaut’s Boardinghouse,” she said patiently. It was a subject of intense debate at the boardinghouse. Since Mrs. Plaut could hear practically nothing, we wondered why she insisted on answering the phone and, in fact, fought off anyone who tried to take it from her. We also wondered how she heard it ringing. Perhaps it was the vibrations or a sixth sense given only to the ancient and feisty.

“Gunther Wherthman,” I shouted, loud enough to wake Thomas, who had dozed off on the cot where I had been lying.

“Mr. Wherthman,” she gasped. “Why are you calling? I just saw you into your room.”

“Oh shit,” I sighed softly.

“You needn’t blaspheme,” retorted Mrs. Plaut. “Even in your native tongue.”

Dot looked at me without curiosity, puffed on his pipe, and dreamed of Sergeant York.

“Peters, Peters, Toby PETERS,” I shouted. The veins on my forehead ached.

“Mr. Peelers?” she said after a pause.

“Yes,” I gasped.

“He is not here and the police are looking for him again,” she explained.

“The police …”

“I’ll let you talk to Mr. Wherthman,” she said, and I heard the phone clink against the wall in the hall.

“Used to work in the estuary down near San Luis,” Dot told no one in particular as he took his pipe out and looked into the bowl before returning it to the corner of his mouth.

There is no end to the eccentricity of this world, I observed silently waiting for Gunther, who finally came on after a scraping of the chair in the hall on which he always stood to cope with the phone.

“This is Gunther Wherthman here,” he said with his usual accent and dignity.

“This is Toby, Gunther. I’ve had a slight accident.”

“Toby, are you all right?”

“I’m O.K. Can you come and get me? I’ll tell you where I am. What did Mrs. Plaut mean about the cops looking for me?”

“You are, it seems wanted for interrogation concerning the murder of a Mr. Grayson. I heard through the door. As you know I am not fond of the Los Angeles police.” He paused politely and waited for my next question.

“Was my brother one of the cops who came?”

“That is correct,” he said.

I gave him directions and spent the next hour and ten minutes playing poker with Dot, who took me for four bucks and informed me that he would use the money to go into town and see Veronica Lake in
This Gun for Hire
.

“She gets kissed by Robert Preston,” he said, his eyes glazing over with the look he reserved for Sergeant York and Veronica Lake.

“I’ll have to catch it,” I said.

When Gunther arrived, I picked up my package, thanked Dot, petted Thomas, and got into the car next to Gunther. Gunther’s Olds was equipped with built-up pedals so he could reach them.

“Little fella,” said Dot, pointing at Gunther with his pipe.

“I hadn’t noticed,” I said, and we pulled into the night heading back to L.A.

CHAPTER 5