The Straight Man - Roger L Simon (4 page)

I burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"You wouldn't like it."

"How would you know?"

"
Oh, I know."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I probably know more about it than anybody
you've ever met."

She eyed me cooly. "I see .... Well, good-bye."

She started off.

"Hey, where're you going?"

"I don't like people who make assumptions about
other people, even if they are private eyes, which you must be,
because if you're not, you're the most egocentric person I've ever
met. Besides, you're obviously here looking into Mike Ptak's death."

"
Assumption on your part."

"Furthermore," she continued without
bothering to contradict me, "if you were any good at what you
did, you'd want to interview me."

"
I would? Why's that?"

"I was standing right here when it happened."

"You were?"

"That's right. I was pacing around back here
before going on, trying to remember my jokes, or maybe trying to
forget them, when I heard someone scream something and then I saw him
come flying down."

"Scream something? Scream what?"

"I'm not sure. Something like 'nestral' or
'nestron' or 'neuter'."

" 'Neuter'?"

"Weird, huh? Anyway, it was something like that.
My English sounds good, but it isn't perfect. Did you ever try to
perform in a foreign language? It's no picnic. Of course it's not
half so bad as seeing somebody's guts splattered across the asphalt
like yesterday's chicken salad."

"
Did you tell the police about this?"

"Yes, of course. It's no secret. I've told the
police and now I've told you, Mr. . . ."

"Wine. Moses Wine."

"Yes. Mr. Wine . . . good night." She
started off again.

"Wait a minute."

"I really need some Certs, Mr. Wine."

"I'd like to see you again."

"What for?"

"I don't know. The usual thing. Single divorced
male seeks attractive redhead with sense of humor and checkered
employment history for fun and—"

"Oh." She looked disappointed. "I
thought it was because you might need help with your case. I was
serious about being a private detective. I'm even taking a course at
the Learning League. Good-bye."

She disappeared into the club.

I decided to extend Sonya's comedy education a bit
longer and pay a visit to the Albergo Picasso.

I entered through the front door and crossed directly
through the main lobby, past some imitation African masks and a
full-size reproduction of Guernica, to the concierge's desk. A tall
blond guy in his late twenties wearing a dark suit with the
traditional crossed keys was standing behind it with a bored
expression. He looked like a surfer who went to finishing school.

"How do you do? My name's Mark Burg," I
told him.

"I'm co-owner of Second Skin Leathers down in
Redondo Beach. Do you know it?"

He didn't open his mouth.

"
I guess you don't. Anyway, we specialize in
quality leathers like this." I gestured to my own jacket, which
I had picked up on sale in the Mexico City flea market. "Also
lizard skins, ostrich, and other endangered species. Did you ever see
an anaconda belt?"

"No." He seemed slightly more interested.

"They look great with our skintight virgin fawn
pants. Some people get their own turquoise Navajo buckle to go with
it, but I think they're a little passé. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah."

"Anyway, we've got some very important vendors
coming in from Milan with all the latest styles and—you know
Redondo Beach—it's not exactly happening down there. So we
naturally thought of a bungalow at the Beverly Hills, but my partner
said I just had to see the penthouse at the Picasso."

"
The penthouse is closed."

"
Really? Until when?"

"Further notice."

"Remodeling?"

"Police matter."

"Ah-ha. Well, look, these guys are gonna be here
in six weeks. Surely it'll be open by then. And they need a nice
large suite. Somewhere they can keep all their samples. They always
have a lot of extras lying around. And they love to give them away to
the staff. It makes them feel like big tippers. And you know
Europeans—they think the concierge is a big deal." I let that
sit there, but not too long. "What's your name, sir?"

"Edward Lomax."

"Do you think I could have a look at the
penthouse, Mr. Lomax? If the police have it locked up, there's no one
in there now."
 
"Yeah, I
suppose," he said, trying to suppress a smile at all the great
gear he'd be collecting. First Koontz, now this one. Everyone in Los
Angeles had gone berserk for clothes or food.

He rang for the bellhop. "Nastase!"

A squat man with a shaven head and a mottled body
alternately layered with muscle and fat instantly materialized from
behind a pillar. A crucifix dangled from his neck and his breath
smelled faintly of garlic, giving him, despite the requisite "Blue
Period" tunic, the appearance of a refugee from a photograph of
some old Greco-Roman wrestling competition. He seemed so outrageously
out of place in this determinedly with-it environment that I had to
be careful to restrain myself from laughing.

"Show Mr. Burg the D'Avignon Suite," said
Lomax, handing him the key.

Nastase didn't say a word until we were halfway up in
the elevator. "Is you a religious gentleman, mister?" He
had a thick Eastern European accent.

"
Funny, you're the second guy to ask me that
tonight. No, I'm not particularly religious but I see you are."
I nodded to his crucifix. "I bet you're Romanian Orthodox."

"
Yes, yes!" he said proudly. "How you
know that, mister?"

"Nastase, like Nastase, the great Romanian
tennis player."

"Yes, yes. Very great. He Ilie Nastase. I Vasile
Nastase."

The elevator opened on the penthouse suite. "Vasile
Nastase from Moldavia. Near place you Americans know very
good—Transylvania!" He laughed as if this were a huge joke,
then suddenly looked grave as we took a step forward into the foyer
of the D'Avignon Suite. Not surprisingly, a reproduction of Picasso's
famous Demoiselles was staring us straight in the face as we entered.
Nastase dropped to his knees and crossed himself. "This sad
place, mister."

"Yeah," I said. "I heard. Some
comedian committed suicide here the other week." I walked into
the living room while Nastase lurked in the doorway. It seemed as if
the police investigation had been completed. The usual warnings about
evidence-tampering were gone and everything was meticulously turned
out like a normal hotel room between guests. If there had been any
indications of struggle, they were long gone. I continued into the
bedroom, Nastase shuffling reluctantly behind me as if Dracula's own
curse were in the air. "But I'm not superstitious, are you?"

"
The Romanian Orthodox Church is autocephalous,
mister."

"Autocephalous?"

"Not under jurisdiction of other church. Has own
bishop in Bucharest even under Communists?"

"What does that have to do with superstition?"
I walked out onto the balcony.

"No. Don't go there. Is bad place."

I ignored him and went over to the balcony rail,
glancing up from Ptak's grim destination to the glittering view that
went straight down La Cienega past Baldwin Hills to the airport. Then
I turned back to Vasile, whose bull-like Greco-Roman presence was
lurking at the balcony entrance.

"Where were you when it happened?"

"I not here," he said flatly.

"Well, that's good. Fellow like that falls off a
building, I imagine the police would ask a lot of questions."

"They ask, but so what?"

"Yeah, so what? If you're not here, you're not
here. Where were you then?"

"Why you ask?" He took a step toward me.

"Curiosity. I'm in the leather business and I'm
interested in people's motivations. For sales."

"Well, I not here. I tell you. I not like your
questions, mister. How you know so much about Romania?"

"I don't know much about Romania. All I know are
Nastase and Nadia Comaneci."

Vasile didn't look appeased. He took another step
toward me. I walked past him back inside, just to be on the safe
side.

"One other question. My business
partners—they're very nervous about fire. How do you get out of
here, in case of an emergency?"

Vasile came back in and unbolted the fire door
without comment. It led down a dark industrial stair.

"Pretty spooky in there," I said. "Suppose
you're playing around back there, you know, just for fun, and you get
stuck. Can you get back in?"

"Then you stupid," he said.

5

"The French-Canadian? Her name is Chantal
Barrault."

"Barreled?"

"Not Barreled, you illiterate. Bah-row.

Like Jean-Louis Barrault, the great movie star from
the Golden Age of the Cinema."

"Before Cheech and Chong?"

"Smart guy. Always a smart guy. Maybe you should
be in therapy, the way you always mask your aggressive feelings in a
wise remark." I had been driving Sonya back to the senior
citizens center, listening to her evaluations of the various comics.
"That's what the rest of them do, attack the audience like that
dreadful Rivers woman or make stupid jokes about cocaine. Cocaine has
replaced mothers-in-law as the major source of humor. Whatever
happened to Lenny Bruce? Now, there was a man. By the way, you might
be interested to know there's a big competition between the Fun Zone
and that other comedy club, Joysville."

"I think we're being followed."

"Really?" Sonya brightened. I knew she'd
like that. What the hell—at seventy-three you might as well have a
little action in your life. There aren't that many more chances.

"How do you know?"

"The car behind us has its right headlight out."

"Yeah? So?"

"At the last stoplight it had its left one out."

"You mean they switch 'em back and forth?"

"With a little gizmo under the dash. It's kind
of a rolling disguise."

"Clever, clever."

"Not clever enough for us, though, was it?"
I pulled into a mini-mall, parking right in front of a brightly lit
7-Eleven.

"Sit tight."

"Sure thing, Bull Drummond."

Bull Drummond? That was from the Golden Age of the
Nickelodeon. I got out of the car and walked into the liquor store,
then went straight out the back way without even a sideways glance at
the irritated clerks. Outside, I quickly pulled an old baseball cap
out of my hip pocket and a pair of nonprescription horn-rimmed
glasses and moved quickly around the block, crossing the boulevard at
the next light. As I expected, a somewhat battered cream-colored
Toyota was parked about forty yards down at the proper vantage point
to see all the exits from the mini-mall. A hefty dark-haired guy in
his fifties, probably an ex-cop, was seated in the driver's seat,
tapping impatiently on the steering wheel.

I approached casually, made a mental note of his
license plate, then crossed the street about thirty feet from his
car, returning to the back of the 7-Eleven, where I took off the hat
and glasses, bought a sixpack of Harvey Weinhard (with a receipt for
Emily Ptak), and returned to the car. The Toyota followed me all the
way out to Venice and then back to West Hollywood after I had dropped
off Sonya. It remained outside my apartment for a half hour. By then
it was one-thirty. I turned off my lights and went to sleep.

The next morning I called my DMV contact to check out
the Toyota. It usually took him about fifteen minutes to get back to
me with his packet of information, so I made myself some coffee and
stared out my kitchen window down the Strip past the same billboards
for AIDS and the California Hunger Project. About a mile off, the
Astro House glowed gold in the morning light. A classic Art Deco
mini-scraper from the twenties with a spire like the Chrysler
Building and a site that dominated half of Los Angeles, it had fallen
on bad times, its original bas-reliefs flaking and its ornate windows
boarded up or smashed. If someone ever bothered to fix it up, it
would've been a masterpiece. But in this era of dying gays and
starving Africans, I wouldn't have given it top priority.

The Toyota, a 1973 Corolla, was the fully owned and
sole vehicle of one Stanley Burckhardt. He had one moving violation
for running a stop sign in 1984 and was listed on 2380 Sixth Street
in Los Angeles. I dialed him straight off. The phone answered: "Peace
of Mind Insurance. Can I help you?"

I hung up immediately. Peace of Mind Insurance.
Obviously one of my colleagues and, just as obviously, a specialist
in unsavory domestic matters—divorce, adultery, X-rated motel
surveillance—everything, in short, that makes a private eye feel
like a seedy schmuck. This was going to be easier than I thought.