Now You See It

Chapter 15

“Rand, Rand, Rand, Rand,” said the young woman in the serious suit and large glasses.

Her name was Miss Sanford. It said so on the pin over her right jacket pocket. Her hair was dark and pinned back. She was, young, pretty, and all business. She pointed her sharpened pencil at a name on the sheet of paper on the clipboard in her hand.

We were standing in the lobby of the Roosevelt. The only reason she was talking to me was that I had worked from time to time filling in for the regular night house detective when he was on vacation or got sick.

“Here he is,” she said. “I remember him. Mr. Ott insisted that we use him, told us we wouldn’t have to pay him. Carlos, the head-waiter, didn’t much like the idea but Mr. Ott was paying the bill for the evening and …”

“Did Ott say why he wanted Rand working last night?”

“Said it was part of a surprise for Blackstone’s party,” she said.

“The surprise was Ott skewered on a platter,” I said.

“That’s not really funny,” she said.

“Guess not,” I agreed. “Got an address for Rand?”

“Of course,” she said. “We wouldn’t let him work, even for one meal, if we didn’t have his address and full identification. Board of Health.”

She gave me the address. I wrote it in my notebook.

“Thanks,” I said. “You related to Tony Sanford?”

“My father,” she said.

Tony was the regular night house detective I filled in for. Tony and I were about the same age. No, I was a few years older. I looked at his daughter and felt old, very old.

“Anything else I can help you with?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“You’re working for Mr. Blackstone, right?” she asked.

“Right,” I said.

“He and his brother are in the ballroom now,” she said, looking toward the ballroom door.

I tapped my notebook on the back of my hand, pocketed it, said “thanks” and headed for the ballroom, almost bumping into a laughing young couple.

“Sorry, sir,” the girl said.

They moved on. So did I.

Inside the ballroom, Blackstone stood on the platform. The table and podium were just where they had been the night before. Blackstone had his right hand on his chin and was saying “Once more” as I stepped in.

The lights went out.

Blackstone counted “One, two, three, and then said”, “Now.”

The lights came back on. Peter Bouton came out from behind the drapes to my left, nodded at me, and looked across the room at his brother.

“Door,” called Blackstone.

Peter moved past me, opened the door I had come through. On the platform, Blackstone began counting again as he strode toward me, nodded, and went out the door closing it behind him. A beat later the door opened and the brothers Bouton came back in.

“I was the last one out of here,” Harry said, looking at me with his arms crossed. “I saw no one behind me but Ott facedown. It took no more than twenty seconds to clear the room. We’ve timed the whole thing eight times.”

“Which means?” I asked.

“We think we’re close,” said Pete.

“There’s no event in here tonight,” said Blackstone. “I’ve reserved the room for a reenactment that we’ll conduct after our show at the Panfages. We’ve got the guest list, and everyone on it is being called now and urged to return for the event.”

I told them about what Jimmy Clark had seen, about Rand the waiter.

He told me that Gwen was out of the hospital and ready to do the show that night.

“We told her ‘no,’” said Blackstone, “but I did ask her to come here tonight.”

“If we’re ready,” said Pete.

“If we’re ready,” Harry agreed.

“We have to reenact it?” I asked.

“An impossible murder,” Harry said. “The police are baffled. An audience of magicians expecting a solution from Blackstone. I’ll never have another moment like this. I’ve invited that policeman with the red face and hair.”

“Cawelti,” I said. “You think you’ll be able to tell us who killed Ott?”

“We’ll be able to show you how it was done,” Harry said. “As for who did it, I think we can guarantee the revelation of at least one guilty party.”

The Bouton brothers looked at each other with satisfaction.

“No formal wear required tonight,” said Blackstone.

“Good,” I said.

“Back to work,” said Harry, heading back to the platform.

“Back to work,” I agreed and went through the door and back across the lobby.

I made what I thought was going to be a quick stop at our office, which was only a few blocks from the hotel.

Mistake.

Alice Pallas Butler was sitting at the conference table with her arms folded across her more than ample chest. Jeremy was a very big man. Alice was a match for him. Before they were married, Alice had run a very soft-core pornographic printing operation out of her office in the Farraday. In moments of trouble-meaning a possible visit from the police-Alice had been known to pick up the small printing press, which weighed something in the vicinity of two hundred plus pounds and take it out the window and up the fire escape to the roof.

Jeremy had won her over to the beauty of poetry instead of pornography and she had taken to it, printing Jeremy’s poems for about a year before taking to Jeremy, as well, and marrying him.

They had a daughter, Natasha, who was just starting to walk and was definitely talking. Natasha looked nothing like either parent. She had a beautiful round face with big brown eyes, a great smile, and no sign that she was going to grow into someone with the size and strength of either of her parents.

“Where’s Natasha?” I asked.

“Upstairs with her father,” Alice said. “She’s taking a nap. I think she’s going to start reading soon.”

I didn’t sit.

“She’s not even two,” I said.

“Her father is a genius,” Alice said seriously.

I could have contested that having been subject to Jeremy’s poetry for a lot longer than Alice, but I just nodded in agreement.

“I have something to say,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t?”

I thought she was going to say I had my last warning about involving her husband in one of my cases, that she knew someone had been murdered, that she wanted me to tell him to stay home. We were past the “or else” stage. She had given that to me two cases ago.

“My husband is almost sixty-three,” she said. “I think he should be taking care of this building, his family, and himself.”

So far, it sounded like what I expected to hear.

“You want me to tell him that I don’t need his help,” I said. “And if I don’t you will do me bodily harm.”

“No,” she said. “If he wants to work with you on these things, I’ve decided I don’t have the right to try to stop him. I can only let him know how I feel. Jeremy needs to be needed. He would never admit it. He values your friendship. God knows why.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“He’s a poet.”

“I know.”

“And he’s also the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

“Me, too.”

“So, I won’t ask him to stop anymore,” she said, still sitting. “But if any harm comes to him when he is working with you, you’ll deal with Alice Pallas Butler. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“You don’t want to deal with Alice Pallas Butler.”

“I do not,” I said.

“He told me about what you’re doing tonight, the Blackstone business. I want to be there with Jeremy.”

“My ballroom is your ballroom,” I said.

She got up now and walked to the door.

“I left some photographs of Natasha on your desk,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Her father is in some of them.”

“And you?”

“I’m behind the camera watching,” she said. “I’m a watcher.”

“I’ll remember that.”

And she was gone. I went to my desk. The four photographs, all black and white, were lined up so I could sit at my desk and look at them. The kid was cute, bright, smiling. Jeremy holding her. He wasn’t so cute. I piled the photographs and put them in my top drawer. Alice had a point.

Melvin Rand’s address was off of San Vicente, a street of three-story apartment buildings with courtyards and signs in front saying that you were looking at the Reseda Palms Apartments, or the Mexicali Arms, or, in Rand’s case, Caliente Fountain Court.

The fountain was small, in the center of the courtyard, and needed a good cleaning. Green algae turning black lined the stone sides of the round pool into which the fountain trickled. There were pennies on the bottom of the pool, not many. Most of them were green, too. I threw one in and made a wish as I headed for the entrance to the right at the rear.

The names of the tenants were on little cards slid into slots. The cards were different colors, some typed, some scrawled. Rand’s was typed.

I didn’t ring the bell. There wasn’t any, just an apartment number and a stairway I didn’t have to walk up, because Rand’s number was six which was at ground level.

The blinds were down on Apartment Six. I knocked. It was definitely past my lunchtime. Mrs. Plaut’s Spam casserole and the two donuts I had with Phil at the drugstore were holding me together, but I decided that if Rand didn’t answer, I’d find someplace to get a fried egg sandwich and come back. I knocked again. Nothing. I looked around. No one was in sight, and all I could hear was the trickling of the fountain behind me.

I tried the door. It wasn’t locked. I considered not going in. People locked their doors in Los Angeles. There was a war going on. Wars made people a little crazy. Some of them, particularly gangs of young guys facing the draft and willing to take some chances, would consider an unlocked door an invitation and a locked one a challenge.

I went in, found the light switch on the wall to my right, hit it, and closed the door behind him.

Melvin Rand did not make me look for him. He lay on the floor in the middle of the small living room into which I had stepped. He was definitely the same guy Wilde had sent running at Columbia. He was wearing nothing except for a pair of shorts and a bright yellow short-sleeved shirt opened to reveal a not very neat hole in his chest right about where one might expect to find his heart. In his right hand was a gun. In his left hand, a sheet of paper. His arms were sprawled at his sides.

I pulled out my handkerchief, wiped the light switch where I had touched it, and moved to the body. There wasn’t much blood, but what there was was enough.

I touched the body. The room was warm. So was the former Melvin Rand. He hadn’t been dead long. I angled my head to see if I could read what was on the sheet of paper in his hand without touching it. I could. It was written in block letters in ink and unsigned.

I KILLED CUNNINGHAM. I KILLED OTT. I AM SORRY.

BLACKSTONE IS INNOCENT.

That was it. It was probably the most unconvincing murder made to look like a suicide I’d ever seen. Now, for most people, a statement like that wouldn’t mean much, but I had, in my nearly half century of existence, witnessed four fake suicides.

Using my handkerchief, which I carried less for my allergies and more for occasions like this, I searched the apartment as quickly as I could. There wasn’t much to it, just two rooms and a kitchenette. The bedroom was small. The room where Rand lay looking at the ceiling wasn’t much larger.

I found one Waterman pen. I unscrewed the top and touched the point. It was dry. It hadn’t been used to write the note in Rand’s hand. I looked for paper and found some sheets on a table near the bed. They didn’t come close to matching the one in Rand’s hand.

I looked at the note again. If someone was trying to clear Black-stone of two murders, he, she, or they had made him look more guilty. Plus, now they had added a third murder to the list.

Cawelti was a vindictive, petty, grudge-carrying hothead, but there were some things he was not. He was not corrupt, and he was not congenitally stupid. He would come to the same conclusion I had, and then Blackstone would be in even worse trouble than he had been when Rand had still been breathing.

I finished looking around. No address book. No checkbook, no notes. There was a black chest in the bedroom closet. I opened it. Magic tricks. No black satchel full of money. I snapped it shut and got out of the apartment, closing the door with my handkerchief-covered hand.

“He in?” a man’s voice said behind me.

I didn’t know when he had crept up on me. I lifted my hand and knocked at the door I had just closed.

“Doesn’t seem to be there,” I said, turning to face an old man with stoop shoulders, a little shorter than me with bright blue eyes in a very craggy face. He was wearing overalls and a gray work shirt.

“You a friend?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Greater California and Arizona Life Insurance Company. Harvey Cortez. Got a call from Mr. Rand, but …” I shrugged. “It happens in my line of work. They tell you to come and they’re not there.”

“You weren’t in there just now?” the old man said.

“Nope,” I said.

“Mrs. Gatstonsen next door said she heard a noise from in there a little while back,” the man said. “Like something breaking, someone falling down.”

“Seems quiet in there now,” I said.

“Mrs. Gatstonsen is always hearing noises,” he said. “She’s a widow.”

“That explains it,” I said. “You think she might be interested in insurance?”

“Ask her,” he said. “Your risk. She’ll give you coffee and an earful, and I doubt she’ll buy the time of day for a penny-but it’s your time.”

“I guess I’ll skip Mrs. Gatstonsen,” I said.

“Briefcase,” the old man said.

“Briefcase?”

“Where’s your briefcase, Mr. Harvey Cortez?” he asked. “Insurance man without a briefcase.”

“In my car,” I said, pointing at the street. “Wanted to be sure Mr. Rand was home. It’s heavy and I’ve got a sore arm. Handball.”

He stood there for a few seconds, sizing me up. I smiled. I don’t think he liked what he saw and he would certainly remember me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’ve got no time for games,” he said. “Never did.”

“I’m not playing …”

“Handball is for people who can’t fill their time with what’s worthwhile,” he said.

“You’re a man of strong convictions,” I said. “I respect that.”

“Then vote for Dewey,” he said.

“I will,” I lied. “Better get going.”

I looked at my father’s watch on my wrist. I didn’t pay attention to the time. It was never right. I didn’t wear it to know what time it was.

I stepped past the old man, knowing he was watching me over his shoulder. I walked at what I considered the normal pace for an insurance salesman who had clients to see and a living to make.

It wouldn’t take long for the old man to try the door of Rand’s apartment. It wouldn’t take long for him to reach for the phone and call the police. It wouldn’t take long for John Cawelti to come looking for me.

The lunch crowd was gone, so Anita took her time serving me a tuna on toast, fries, and a Pepsi. I could have gone back to the Farraday, picked up a few tacos from Manny’s, sat at my desk, and waited for Cawelti to come for me.

My tooth was most definitely bothering me, creating a constant heavy pressure that I still didn’t want to call pain. I used the oil of cloves. I also needed a dose of common sense, a remedy I generally was a little short on. I told Anita what had happened at Rand’s apartment.

“So?” I asked, washing down a French fry with a drink of Pepsi.

She brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead and said. “So, I think you should pull out a nickel, put it in the phone, call Phil and tell him what happened.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But he’s got sick kids and …”

“He’s a big boy,” said Anita, taking my now-empty plate and walking over to put it in the bin of dirty dishes under the counter.

“Very big,” I said.

“Got a nickel?” I asked.

“It can be arranged. How’s that tooth?”

“Playful,” I said.

She reached into her uniform pocket, came up with a nickel and flipped it to me. I caught it in my palm and closed my fist on it.

“Just like in the movies,” she said with a smile.

I went to the phone in the back of the drugstore near the washrooms and called Phil’s house. Phil’s sister-in-law Becky answered.

“Me,” I said. “How’s everyone?”

“Doctor Hodgdon said we’ll all survive.” Her voice dropped. “How’s Phil been behaving?”

“Like Phil,” I said. “Well, not exactly.”

“Right,” Becky repeated. “Not exactly. He’s going through the motions, Toby. You have some good news for him?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“I’ll put him on.”

I looked over my shoulder toward the counter. Anita was serving coffee to a guy in a brown delivery uniform. He was leaning forward and grinning. Anita was smiling. I was jealous.

“Toby,” came Phil’s voice.

I told him about Melvin Rand, my tap dance with the old guy Mrs. Gatstonsen had called.

“Where are you?”

I told him.

“Stay there.”

He hung up, and so did I. I went back to the counter. The delivery guy was a few years younger than me, a few pounds lighter and definitely better looking. He looked over at me and raised his cup of coffee. When he put it down, Anita refilled it. He winked at her. She looked at me and gave a shrug so small that only a trained detective or a half-blind bus driver could see it.

“How’s it going?” the delivery guy asked me.

“I’m waiting to be picked up by the police,” I said.

“That a fact?” he said, winking at Anita to let her know he knew a joke when he heard one, even a bad one. “Maybe I’ll just hang around and watch. Don’t have to make the next delivery for an hour and change.”

“Be my guest,” I said. “What do you deliver?”

“Appliances. The May Company,” he said. “Who’d you kill?” Another wink.

“You mean in my lifetime, or just today?”

“Let’s stick with today. Who do the cops think you killed?”

He was obviously enjoying himself. I wasn’t.

“A magician,” I said. “No, make that a waiter.”

“A magician? Hey, he do any tricks?”

“He plays dead,” I said.

The appliance delivery man looked at his watch and then at Anita. He kept looking, drinking coffee, and checking his watch. After about ten minutes of banter and a full bladder, he headed for the men’s room.

“You did the right thing, Toby,” Anita said. “Calling Phil.”

“Depends on who comes through that door,” I answered.

When a lone, lean man with slumped shoulders and a fedora pulled down over his eyes came in, I felt a little better.

Steve Seidman saw me, walked over, and sat. Anita brought him a cup of coffee. Seidman added three spoons of sugar and a lot of cream.

Steve was my brother’s former partner, and still a cop. The best thing about him was that he wasn’t Cawelti.

The delivery man came out of the men’s room tightening his belt.

“Hey, fella,” he called to Seidman. “Don’t sit too close to him. The police are coming to arrest him for murdering a waiter.”

Steve put down his coffee mug, reached into his jacket pocket, came out with his wallet, flipped it open and displayed his well-polished badge to the delivery guy.

The fellow dropped two quarters on the counter and left without looking at Anita.

“How’s Phil?” he asked.

“Could be better,” I said.

“You play it too cute, Toby,” he said, reaching for the sugar.

“It’s the imp in me,” I said. “Phil told you the story?”

“Officially, I haven’t talked to Phil,” he said. “You called me about an hour ago, said you went to see this guy Rand and found him dead. You were being a good citizen.”

“The old man,” I said. “The janitor.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Seidman said.

“Cawelti?”

“It’s my case,” Seidman said. “You called me. You might even wind up with the mayor giving you a good citizenship medal. Finish up and we’ll go take a look at the body, and you can fill me in on what this is all about.”

“It’s a long story, with two other dead guys,” I said, sighing.

“Is it interesting?” asked Seidman.

“I think so,” I said. I sighed again.

“Make it a short story.”

We both finished our coffees, left what we owed, and got up. I waved to Anita, who waved back, and we headed back to the Caliente Fountain Apartments. We went in Seidman’s unmarked car, and I kept the story short.

The old man was nowhere in sight when we stood in front of Apartment Six. Seidman turned the knob. The door was still unlocked. We stepped inside. Everything looked the way I had left it, except for one thing. But it was an important thing: Melvin Rand’s body wasn’t lying there looking up at the ceiling.

“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” said Seidman.

“He was dead.”

We looked in the bedroom, under the bed, in the closet. No Rand. No gun. No note.

“He was here,” I said.

Seidman was about to say something when the phone started to ring. We were standing in the living room. The telephone was on a small coffee table with a scratched top.

Seidman picked it up and said, “Hello.”

He listened for a moment, then held it out.

“It’s for you.”

“Phil?”

“No,” said Seidman.

I took the phone and said, “Hello.”

“I’m sorry,” the person on the other end said. The voice sounded high, maybe falsetto, filtered through a towel or a piece of cloth.

Seidman had already moved to the window and parted the blinds enough to get a look outside. Whoever was calling must have seen us come into the apartment, must have gone for a nearby phone. He or she couldn’t be more than a few minutes away.

“Where’s Rand’s body?” I asked.

Seidman nodded and mouthed, “Keep him talking.”

Then he went out the door and closed it behind him.

“Where it belongs,” the caller said, almost weeping. He seemed genuinely upset.

“And where is that?”

“Keller’s house.”

“Why there?”

“It’s where he belongs,” said the caller. “I didn’t think you’d find the body.”

“You saw me come in here earlier?”

“I followed you. I wanted to tell you to stay away, but how could I? Then you’d know I killed him. And then after that old man showed up … I had to move him.”

“And nobody saw you?”

“I put him in a trunk and … it doesn’t matter. I already called the police and told them to go to Mr. Ott’s. They’ll find the body and the note and the gun and it will all be over.”

“I don’t …” I began, but he cut in.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Wait,” I said. “You were with Rand at Columbia, weren’t you?”

“I had no choice,” the caller said.

“You always have a choice.”

“Yes.” There was a pause. “But sometimes the choice is a very, very bad one.”

“Just one more question.”

He hung up, and so did I. I went out the door and ran toward the street where I stopped and looked both ways. There was a phone booth about two blocks to my left. I could see Seidman running toward it. I started after him.

“Missed him,” he said. “He saw me coming, didn’t even have to run, just got out of the booth, walked to the corner, and turned. When I got there, there was no one.”

“Get a good look?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Dark coat, collar pulled up. It could have been a woman. It could have been Myrna Loy.”

Seidman was a sucker for Myrna Loy.

“I know where Rand is,” I said.

“Lead on,” he said, and we went back to his car.