Now You See It

Chapter 5

A third cop I hadn’t seen was stationed at the stage door. I knew the routine. No one in, no one out, till the detectives came and said otherwise.

“I need Gwen Knight’s address fast,” I told Peter Bouton, looking down at the cop at the door and hearing the other two cops going into the dressing room where Phil was waiting with Cunningham’s body.

The cop at the door was familiar to me. I didn’t remember his name. He had been transferred to the Wilshire District when the Hollywood force had been juggled after a hush-hush about uniforms on the take from bookies that hung around Columbia Pictures studio. He looked up at me. Recognition.

“Downstairs,” said Bouton.

I followed him down the wobbling metal steps and into a small office lined with rusting file cabinets surrounding a small banged-up wooden desk.

“I leave my stuff in my briefcase whenever we …” Pete began as he shuffled through a pile of papers reaching behind the desk. “Here.”

He pulled a battered briefcase from behind the small desk and opened it. He found the sheet he was looking for.

“Not what I thought,” he said. “The other girls are staying at the Arlington Arms. Gwen is staying with someone … her sister … on Beverly, the Bluedorn Apartments.”

He found a pencil and a small pad of paper and wrote the sister’s name, address, and phone number on it. He handed it to me. I glanced at it, pocketed the sheet and said, “Thanks.”

I left the small office, ignoring the eyes of the cop at the door, and headed for the stage. Blackstone was pointing a wand at some black enamel boxes. The buzz saw trick was over. I could only see the sides. I moved behind the curtains and down the stairs into the audience. People were looking at me. I glanced back. Blackstone saw me and said with a wave of his hand, “Ladies and gentleman. The man who was cut in half by the buzz saw.”

The audience applauded. I bowed as I went up the aisle.

“Uncle Toby,” Nate called out.

I waved at my nephews, grinned at the audience, hurried through the doors and into the lobby. No cops on guard. I almost bumped into Calvin Ott, who was entering the theater. He was dark-blue suited and grinning.

“Mr. Peters,” he said. “How is the show?”

“You missed the best part,” I said.

He looked at my uniform and shook his head.

“Welcome to show business,” he said.

He moved around me and went inside. I wondered what the hell he was doing there, but I didn’t have time to ask. I went around the corner to my car and squeezed in.

Changing out of the Chocolate Soldier costume would have been nice, but I didn’t have the time. I made it to the address on Beverly in eleven minutes. It was an apartment building, The Blue-dorn, six stories, white brick, nice bushes and front lawn, slightly on the classy side, which meant there was a doorman.

He was lean, blue uniformed, no cap, thin white hair brushed against his scalp to the right.

“I’m here to see Gwen Knight. She’s staying with her sister, Evelyn.”

“You working an apartment door around here?” he asked looking at my uniform.

“Yeah,” I said. “Boyleton Arms.”

He shook his head.

“What’s it about?”

“Miss Knight was at the Boyleton a little while ago,” I said. “She left her keys.”

I took out my own keys and jiggled them. He held out his hand.

“I’ll give ’em to her.”

“Got to do it myself,” I said. “No offense. Manager told me I had to give them to her myself. You know how it is?”

“She in a show there or something?” the doorman asked. “She came runnin’ in maybe a minute ago wearing one of those … a tiger costume or something.” He ran both hands up in front of him fluttering, as if that would create a clear picture for me of what she was wearing.

“Right,” I said. “She’s in a show. Blackstone the Magician at the Pantages.”

He put down his hand, shrugged, and said, “Four-twelve. Elevator’s on the left.”

“Anyone else come in here from the show in the last ten minutes or so?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“She was with a guy with a beard, turban,” I said.

“No guy like that,” he said. “I don’t see why….”

I pocketed the keys, went through the lobby door, and headed for the elevator. There was no one in the small lobby. The elevator doors were closed. I pushed the button and watched the brass arrow move down 4-3-2-1. There was a ding and the doors slid open.

She was sitting on the floor, her back against the rear wall, sleek in an almost skin-tight stripped costume. Both of her hands were pressed against her stomach.

“He shot me,” she said, eyes open wide in surprise.

Blood was beginning to seep through her fingers. She looked down, saw it, and then looked back at me.

“I think maybe he killed me,” she said.

The elevator door started to close. I held it back with both hands and reached for the switch to turn it off.

“I’ll be right back,” I said and ran to the doorman.

“Call an ambulance, quick,” I said.

“What?”

“She’s been shot.”

“Who?”

“Just call an ambulance. Hurry.” I turned and called back, “Elevator.”

Gwen Knight had gone pale. There was more blood. I’ve seen plenty of blood, much of it my own. I knelt next to her and gently moved her hands.

“I’m dying right?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“You’re just sayin’,” she said.

“No, I can see the bullet. It didn’t even break your rib. Just keep your hands on it to stop the bleeding.”

“It was a little gun, you know?”

“A little gun.”

“Like …,” and she moved her hands, bloody palms facing each other to show how little the gun was that shot her.

I placed her hands back on the wound.

“Like they use in the show. Pellets,” she said. Her eyes rolled back. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Why did he shoot you?” I asked.

“I saw him coming out of my dressing room,” she said. “I went into the dressing room and there was poor Robert.”

“Dead?”

“Almost,” she said. “You’re sure I’m not dying?”

“Positive,” I said, though I was thinking more along the lines of ninety-five percent that she would be all right. “He say anything?”

She closed her eyes and said, “The guy with the turban?”

“No, Robert.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t make any sense.”

“What did he say?”

“Wild on Thursday.”

“Wild on Thursday?”

“What did he mean?”

“Search me,” she said.

She tried to shrug, but it sent a twitch of pain through her.

The doorman came running up and looked down at Gwen, whose eyes moved back in focus. She had great, even white teeth.

“They’re comin’,” he said. “Ambulance. And the cops.”

“Thanks,” I said, and then to Gwen, “The one who shot you?”

“Same guy who shot Robert,” she said. “Sure I’m not dyin’?”

“Sure, cross my heart,” I said.

“That guy I told you about with the beard and turban,” I said to the doorman.

“Nobody like that came in in the last four hours,” said the doorman. “I’d have remembered.”

“Forget the turban and beard,” I said. “Anyone come in who didn’t live here?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Besides me.”

It was faraway and beyond the lobby doors, but I heard a siren on the way.

“No. Yes,” he said. “A doctor, just a few minutes before you. On his way to make a house call on Mr. Collins. Hey maybe I should call up there and he can come down and….”

“You check with Collins before you let him in?”

“No, the guy looked like a doctor, gray hair, glasses, nice suit, one of those pebble leather doctor bags.”

“He asked for Mr. Collins?”

“Yeah, well I thought he said Cowens, but I asked him did he say ‘Collins’ and he … I let the shooter in, didn’t I?”

“Looks that way,” I said.

“Shit.”

He stepped back and shook his head.

“And I’ll bet you’re not a doorman,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” I confirmed. “I’m a private detective.”

“Shit.”

His hands were on his hips now, and I figured he was wondering how he would look without his uniform and without a job.

“Hey,” said Gwen. “Remember me? I’m the one was shot.”

“Let’s get your sister,” I said.

“Not home.”

The siren was close, very close now. It whined down, and the lobby door rattled. It was two uniformed cops and Detective John Cawelti of the Wilshire District. I put it together fast as the doorman ran back to let them in. I had asked Pete Bouton at the Pantages where Gwen lived. He had told the cops. I hadn’t asked him not to. They had come after me. Wounded woman. Hated private detective.

I got into the elevator, flicked the switch, and pressed the button for the fourth floor. As the doors closed, I could hear the sound of at least three sets of feet clapping against the tile floor.

“What’re you doin’?” Gwen screamed.

I held out my hand to calm her.

“Getting out at four, sending you back down to the lobby. “You’ll be alright.” The elevator started up. “You never saw the guy who shot you and Cunningham?”

She closed her eyes tightly.

“Hurts?” I asked.

“No, I’m trying to think. There was something familiar about him, but … I don’t know. I’m gonna live, right?”

“I don’t know if you’re going to live right, but you’re going to live.”

The elevator stopped, and the doors lazily opened. I reached back in and pushed the lobby button.

“You’ll be fine,” I said as the doors started to close.

I smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Then the doors were closed and she was gone and I looked for a way to get out of the building.

I ran past the steps next to the elevators. No point in going down. The police would see me when I hit the lobby. The hallway was wide with worn-out but reasonably clean green carpet. Someone was blaring a radio behind a door on my right. Johnny Mercer was singing Ac-cen-tuate The Positive.

“What did they do just when everything looked so dark?” Mercer sang.

In my case, when everything looked dark, I ran for the window at the end of the hall. Beyond the window was a fire escape. The window went up easily and I stepped out, closing it behind me.

Down or up? I looked down. Narrow driveway. No one in sight. I started down, heard something below, looked and saw someone on foot turning the corner into the driveway. A cop. I started up. Too noisy. I took off my shoes and climbed. I didn’t look back till I was on the roof.

I saw someone dart from behind a whirling metal air vent I was more surprised than I had been by Blackstone’s floating lightbulb. The shooter had gone up, too.

He was lean and fast and about thirty feet away. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see that he was carrying something in one hand. I had no gun, but he did, a very little one that shot pellets, but enough of a weapon to make a hole in Gwen’s chest and, with a lucky or accurate shot, take out an eye and lodge in whatever small brain I may have had.

He dashed. I followed. And then he was gone. I stopped and looked around, panting. A chimney a few feet from a square brick seven-foot-high block with a door. The door was closed. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been opened.

I stood waiting, still panting.

“Come out,” I said. “Hands out and empty.”

Nothing. I took a step forward.

“There are two guns up here,” I said. “Mine, which shoots real bullets, and yours which shoots little balls. If I find you with a gun in your hand.…”

He stepped out from behind the wall next to the door, gun at arm’s length and fired. He was a damned good shot. The pellet thudded into my left shoulder. I spun around. The door opened. Yellow light beamed out. I had a clear shot at his back, if I had a gun. With an electric ache in my shoulder slowing me down, I headed for the open door looking around for a weapon, a brick, a stick, something, anything. I came up with nothing.

A few feet from the door, I suddenly felt like I was going to lose my last meal, a couple of tacos, and a Pepsi at Manny’s on Hoover.I stopped and leaned over. By the light of the open door, I watched blood dropping lazily from the wound in my shoulder.

There was no point in chasing him. I hoped the cops downstairs would stop him.

I stood up and moved toward the open door. Three steps below me was the turban, its green stone catching the yellow light. A few steps further down were the beard and mustache. I had seen a collection of guns in Ott’s house. I had seen a poster of a man with a beard and mustache in a turban on his wall. And the turban, right down to the green piece of glass, looked just like the one on the steps. Not proof, but I didn’t need proof. I was a private investigator, not a cop. I went down, slowly picking up the evidence.

When I reached down to pick up the turban, a young cop, with very pink cheeks, the visor of his cap perfectly balanced over his eyes, stepped out and leveled his gun at me.

“Don’t move,” he said.

I froze.

“Arms up and come down slowly,” he said.

I got my right arm up. My left throbbed with pellet pain, but I managed to get it almost to shoulder level.

“You’re bleeding,” he said as I came down the last few steps.

“I’ve been shot. Did someone come past you on the way up?”

“No,” he said.

“I need a doctor,” I said.

“There’s one downstairs with the woman you shot,” he said backing away, gun leveled at my chest.

“I didn’t shoot her,” I said.

“Tell the detectives,” he said.

He moved behind me and picked up the turban, beard, and mustache.

It didn’t look great for me, but I was reasonably sure I could talk my way out of it. This time, I’d just tell the truth. With about three quarters of the detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department, it would have worked.

But it was John Cawelti waiting for me in the lobby of the Blue-dorn Apartments.