Stuart Kaminsky - He Done Her Wrong

“Just skip it, Gunther,” I advised.

“That is not professional. Do you just skip it when you are working for a client?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Ah, there, so see,” he said, dabbing the corner of his lips with a paper napkin. I resisted the urge to scratch my itching stomach.

“I’ll think about it. I’m taking a drive up near Fresno today. Probably stay over. Want to join me?”

“I’m afraid I cannot unless you are too incapacitated to drive. I have much work, much work.”

“I can make it,” I said, getting up and stacking the dishes in the sink. Gunther finished the last of his coffee, eased himself from the chair, and moved past me to wash the dishes. I didn’t protest.

I shaved in the communal bathroom down the hall, brushed my furry teeth, noted the increasing amount of gray in my hair, and tried to get a look at my bandage, which just peeked out from behind my neck. There were a few aspirin left in the medicine cabinet. I think they were Hill’s. I gulped them and went back to my room. Gunther was gone. I made my bed, a job that consisted of kicking at the blanket so that it covered a pillow.

A search of the room turned up enough change to make the phone calls I needed to make. The first was to Dr. Winning. He answered on the second ring.

“Mr. Peters,” he said evenly. “You have found Mr. Ressner?”

“Not quite,” I said. “I’m following his trail, though. He produced another corpse yesterday. Richard Talbott the actor.”

There was a silence on Winning’s end. Obviously, he didn’t read the L.A. papers, though I would have pegged Talbott’s death for national news. I waited.

“This is terrible,” he finally said, which was accurate but not very imaginative. “What are you going to do?”

“Find him,” I said. “I’m going to call the ex-Mrs. Ressner, the widow Grayson, and her daughter to see what I can dig up. Then I thought I’d come up and see you, maybe check Ressner’s room, talk to some of the staff or patients who knew him.”

More silence and then, “I’m not sure that would be wise. Many of the patients do not know Mr. Ressner is gone. The balance in a mental hospital such as ours is very delicate, very delicate.”

“I’ll be my most charming, doctor. I just don’t have enough to go on to find Ressner and I have less than two days before the cops come down on my already sore back. Not to mention that he might go for Mae West or De Mille next.”

“All right,” Winning gave in. “I’ll prepare the staff for your arrival. When might you be coming?”

“I’ll leave this afternoon. Should get there by tonight unless I get groggy and have to stop someplace on the way. Ressner did a tune on my head. One more thing, doc. I’ll need another cash payment.”

“I’ll have what you need when you arrive,” he said.

He gave me directions on how to get to the Winning Institute. His voice had gone drier and drier and seemed about to crack when we hung up. We both had trouble, and its name was Ressner.

I pulled out some more change and dialed the Grayson number in Plaza Del Lago. It rang and rang and rang and I waited till the baritone cowboy answered, “Grayson residence.”

“Dis be Thor landscape, you know,” I said as deeply as I could. “I must talk Mrs. Grayson. Joshua tree needs vork now, today or it die like dis, bang, bang, puff.”

“I’m afraid she can’t talk, Mr. Thor-”

“Mr. Gundersen,” I corrected.

“Mr. Gundersen,” he sighed with obvious exasperation reserved only for those who spoke with an accent, as if they couldn’t detect sarcasm. “Mr. Grayson died just a few days ago and-”

“And the Joshua vill die, too,” I said insistently.

In the background I could hear stirring and voices, and then a woman came on, voice high and nervous like Billie Burke.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Thor,” I said. “Your husband Grayson vant me take care from your Joshua. Is all right I do it?”

“Yes, yes, of course, do whatever you must do, whatever Harold wanted,” she bleated.

“Good, friend here vants to speak to you.” I moved the phone from my ear, cleared my throat, and went to my best Toby Peters. “Mrs. Grayson, I’m an investigator for the Winning Institute. We’re trying to find your former husband.”

“I am very confused,” she said with a very confused sob. “What are you doing with Mr. Thor, and I thought Harold was killed by some little detective.”

Some little detective. O.K.

“Have you seen Jeffrey Ressner in the last week?” I demanded.

“Why yes. I told the policeman, the state policeman.” Her voice quivered. “I told Jeffrey that he had to go back, but I was never very good at telling Jeffrey or Delores or anyone what they should do.”

“What did Ressner want from you?”

“Money, and a call to the institute to tell them not to look for him. He was most insistent.”

“Did he tell you where he was going, where he would be, where he was staying?”

“No, no.”

“Do you have any idea of where he might be?”

The pause was enough to make me plunge on.

“For his sake, Mrs. Grayson. For your daughter and many innocent people. You must tell me.” I was into my Dr. Christian act.

“There is a hotel in Hollywood, just off Vine. We stayed there when Delores was born and Jeffrey wanted to be an actor. He liked it there, the Los Olvidados. Something he said. I don’t remember quite what made me think …”

“I know the place,” I said. “Keep the cowboy nearby and tell Delores Toby will call her.”

“Toby?” she repeated. “What about Mr. Gunderson and the Joshua?”

“He’ll be out as soon as he can.”

I hung up, turned around, and almost bumped into Mrs. Plaut, who was standing with a broom in her hand staring at me.

“Childish,” she said.

I agreed but said nothing as I eased past her and headed down the stairs. I had a lead and might not have to head for Fresno after all.

It was a Tuesday morning. Kids were in school and the street was clear. I got in the Ford and it started with no trouble. The radio still didn’t work, and I fought down the knowledge that I was doomed to endless worry about whether the car would have gas in it. I put my.38 in the glove compartment and vowed to keep a little notebook on when I filled up with gas. I knew I wouldn’t do it.

There was no problem finding the Los Olvidados apartment hotel. It was a paint-peeling dump on Selma with a sagging palm out in front that looked as if it had a hangover.

The lobby was dark with a fluorescent light sputtering and crackling in the corner. The desk in the lobby was just big enough for one human to get behind, and one was there, a woman reading Collier’s magazine and puffing on a cigarette. She was thin as a rolled-up weekday paper, and her hair was brown wire tied up in a bun.

“Can I do you for?” she said, lifting her eyes but not her head.

“Guy named Ressner registered?”

She gave me a little more attention.

“You a friend?”

“I’m more than a friend,” I said and pulled out my wallet to flash the Dick Tracy badge I’d bought from my nephew Dave. She caught the glint but didn’t ask to see it.

“Got no Ressner registered,” she said. “What’s he look like?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “He would have come here within the last week or so. Can you go through the names? Maybe something will ring a bell.”

She lifted her bony elbow from the desk, rolled up the sleeve of her brown sweater, and put her cigarette in a tin tray. Then she pulled the gray register with a red ribbon in it and started on the names.

“Griffith, Warren, LaSconda, Benetiz, Skrinski, Grayson, Beel-”