Stuart Kaminsky - The Howard Hughes Affair

“I’d appreciate that,” I said.

Gunther thanked me for the snack and said goodnight. I cleaned the dishes and settled back in bed.

In a few minutes, I was asleep. If I dreamed, I don’t remember it.

Breakfast consisted of a very slowly eaten bowl of Kellogg’s corn flakes and a glass of milk with Bosco syrup. The pain in my cheek where I had bitten off more than I wanted to chew had not subsided during the night and made eating unpleasant. My stomach and head were still sore, and the hint of humidity in the air threatened my back. In short, it was a typical morning for Toby Peters.

While I was brushing my teeth with my finger and Doctor Lyon’s tooth powder, Mrs. Plaut knocked and came in without waiting for an invitation. She began padding around the room.

“Mr. Peelers, you should have seen. Police and shooting. We could have used your comfort. Little Mister Wherthman says you are a private police officer. It’s a comfort to have you here when there’s trouble, a comfort, but you weren’t here.”

She stared at me peevishly.

“I’m sorry,” I said innocently, rinsing my mouth and wincing at the pain. “What happened?”

You should have been here,” she repeated and left the room. The phone rang and I raced Mrs. Plaut for it. I was handicapped by a sore stomach, but I beat her by half a length, despite her one-length lead. Breathing hard I said, “Hello.”

“Toby,” came the familiar voice of my only sibling, “get to my office fast. Now. Don’t go for a walk. Don’t see a client. Don’t have breakfast.”

“I already ate.”

He hung up.

No one tried to kill me when I walked outside, which gave me renewed hope. So, full of confidence and with almost a half bottle of Jeris Hair Tonic on my head, I dodged the marathon rope-skipping girls, who had moved to the sidewalk, and headed down the street toward my car. Behind me I could hear their melodious young voices joyfully chant:

Rooms for rent; inquire within;

A lady got put out for drinking gin.

If she promises to drink no more,

Here’s the key to Barry’s door.

I could still hear their giggling half a block away.

I put my.38 back into the glove compartment and in fifteen minutes I was semi-legally parked near Phil’s station. I pulled down my visor with the “Glendale Police” card on it. It was old and frayed and I don’t think it had ever saved me from a ticket, but it was worth a try.

The squad room was almost empty, a morning emptiness of smokers coughing and bleary eyes of a new shift with too little sleep and an old shift that had been up all night. A cop with his jacket off played with his suspenders while he listened to a fat woman who leaned toward him and croaked, “You woulda done the same. Anybody woulda, wouldn’t they?” The cop with the suspenders nodded in boredom and looked toward the squad room door for his relief or the Second Coming.

I knocked at Phil’s door and walked in without waiting for an answer. If it was good enough for Mrs. Plaut, by God, it was good enough for me.

Phil was behind his desk with three dark folders lined up neatly in front of him. He was drinking a steaming cup of coffee from a white mug.

“Sit down, Toby,” he said evenly. “And listen. Listen quietly before you say a word. You understand?”

I told him I understood and sat down. Phil drank a little more coffee, looked at me, drank more coffee and opened the first folder.

“The gentleman we found in your office yesterday,” he began, “was covered with type A blood. His was type B. The gentleman was carrying false identification. His name wasn’t Frye. It was Schell, Wolfgang Schell. I know that because the FBI told me. The FBI came to look at his body and papers before we even had him at the morgue. It seems Mr. Schell is an illegal alien, a German with a bad reputation-I don’t have enough corpses of my own, the goddamn Nazis have to send me more.” Phil had no love for the Germans since they got him almost fatally wounded in his first battle in the big war in 1917.

The look Phil gave me made it clear I was somehow responsible for his present problem with the Germans, and in a way he was right. So, I said nothing. Besides I was learning a lot. Schell was the name of Hughes’ butler, the butler Toshiro had described as less than pleasant. But the butler’s name was Martin, not Wolfgang.

Phil pulled out a pile of photographs from one of the files on his desk and shuffled through them. He went through them quickly and finally stopped at one that made him bite his lip. He held it up for me to see. It was a black-and-white picture of the message written in blood. It still looked like he had written “unkind” to me.

“What the hell does this mean?” Phil asked, almost crushing his still hot coffee cup in his big fist. “Was the Nazi nuts, or was he leaving some information?”

“I don’t know,” I said as Phil replaced the photo.

“You’re in good company for a change,” he said. “The FBI doesn’t either. Think you might tell me where you were yesterday between about noon and two?”

He was about as disarming as a charging rhino.

“Having lunch with Rathbone,” I said. “Why?”

“Guy named Barton, Air Force major got a few bullets in his pump out in Westwood,” Phil said, staring at me.

“So?” I said blankly.

“So, Schell, the dead Nazi in your dental chair had Barton’s phone number in his wallet. Schell knew Barton, and they both wind up dead on the same day, and you discover one of the bodies.”

“So,” I said.

“So,” said Phil standing up, “the call to report Barton’s death came from a guy with a phony Italian accent. Do we know anybody who likes phony Italian accents?”

I shrugged.

“More coincidences,” Phil said, turning to the third folder. “Early this morning we got another call from someone with a phony Italian accent, complaining about a prowler with a gun. The prowler happened to be in your back yard, and the Italian gave a phony name. More coincidence?”

“You are one hell of a good cop, Phil,” I said seriously.

“Maybe you’re just one hell of a poor private detective,” he came back. “Ever think of that?”

“What happened to the prowler?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Got away. Took a few shots at the cops who came to check. One of the cops said he got a glimpse of the guy. Looked like Dracula. You know anyone like that?”

I said I didn’t. Phil put his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were getting a headache. He suffered from migraine headaches. The headaches made him angry, and instead of giving in, he always fought them. A steady stream of coffee always seemed to help when a headache was coming, and a steady stream of me always seemed to make it worse.

“You don’t intend to tell me anything, do you, Toby?”

“I don’t know anything, Phil. Honest to God, I don’t know anything.”

He looked at me evenly before he threw the file of photographs in my face and reached over the desk for me. I backed away just in time. Phil’s headache had slowed him down. The problem was that even though it slowed him down, it made him more determined. He came around the desk and I backed up to the wall.

“The FBI on my back,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “The Air Force on my back. Mysterious messages from Nazi corpses. And you.”

No sound of rushing feet came from outside. It seemed they were used to people being thrown around Phil’s office. Having been thrown around Phil’s office several times before, I decided not to let him hit me without some return fire this time. It might just provoke him even more, but sometimes a man has to put his back to the wall and stand up for what he believes. This wasn’t one of those times, though; I was just tired of getting clobbered.