Stuart Kaminsky - Now You See It

“Wayne Dutton, Paul Steele, Walter Masonick, Milton Beck-stall, Steven Freemont, William Teel, Richard Karkette, and Leo Benz.”

He handed me the notebook. Each name had an address next to it.

Phil ordered another donut.

“Checked them out this morning. Ott had given us the first names. They were all registered with that magicians group. Took ten bucks to a secretary to get it.”

“We’ll put it on Blackstone’s bill,” I said. “I better call Gunther and tell him we don’t need the names and addresses.”

“I’m having someone in the department checking to see if any of our Dranabadurians have arrest records,” said Phil.

“You’re a treasure,” I said, leaning toward him as the waitress leaned forward to refill our cups.

“Kiss me on the head and I’ll break your face.”

“It’s okay,” I told the waitress. “He’s my brother.”

I ordered another donut and called Mrs. Plaut’s back, praying that Gunther would answer the phone. He did.

“Gunther, forget about tracking down those names and addresses. We’ve got them.”

“Then what task shall I perform?”

“How about going back to Columbia Pictures and seeing if someone working on the picture when Cunningham showed up can give you a better description of the person who was with him when he talked to Wilde?”

“I would prefer not to talk to that Phil Silvers person.”

“Then don’t.”

“I shall leave immediately,” Gunther said.

I went back to Phil and said, “Let’s go find a magician with red socks.”

Being trained investigators with a combined total of more than thirty years of police work, we quickly figured out that we didn’t have to talk to all of the Dranabadurians on our list. We just had to find one who could tell us which of his friends wore red socks.

We could work alphabetically or by distance from the drugstore. We went to the closest address. It was in Hollywood, on Vine, not far from Mrs. Plaut’s. The address, a doorway wedged between a small bakery and an even smaller shoemaker’s, was called Karkette’s Gags amp; Tricks. We rang the bell in the doorway and waited. No answer. Rang again. No answer. No conference was necessary. We entered the shop and were greeted by a five-foot-high cardboard cartoon cutout of Adolph Hitler looking over his shoulder at us with his bare behind in the air just below eye level. Adolph looked as if we had surprised him getting off the toilet. We were definitely not in anyone’s idea of a high class establishment.

Before we could pass Adolph, he passed air. I could tell by Phil’s tightened jaw that he didn’t find Hitler farting funny. I didn’t either. Richard Karkette, however, clearly did.

He appeared from behind the cutout and said, “Funny, huh?”

I didn’t recognize him from Ott’s or the Roosevelt ballroom, but that may have been because he wasn’t wearing a tux but a pair of tan trousers and a light green shirt with dark green buttons.

He was about my height, my age, and thin with a little belly that made him look like a pregnant stork. He was bald and grinning.

“Can I help you with …?”

He stopped, looked at us both with recognition and went on, “You were at Marcus’s house the other night and the ballroom last night.”

He wasn’t grinning anymore.

“I can see you’re all broken up about Calvin Ott’s murder,” said Phil, moving to within a foot of the man’s face.

“An act,” Karkette said. “I’ve got a business to run, a living to make. I’m grinning on the outside, see.”

He grinned, showing large, not very white teeth.

“But inside,” he went on, touching his heart underneath a green button, “I’m mourning. Marcus was a great friend, a mentor.”

“And a good customer?”

“The best,” said Karkette. “What do you want?”

“Pull up your pants legs,” Phil said.

“Huh?”

“Pull ’em up,” Phil repeated, louder. “Now.”

Karkette pulled up his pants legs. He looked like he was going to do a dainty dance. His socks were red. Had we got lucky on our first shot?

“Were you wearing red socks like those last night?” Phil said.

“Yes, sure. Can I put my pants down now?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you turn off the lights when Ott was killed?” asked Phil.

“Did I … I was sitting at the table. Table Four. Ask anybody.”

“Was he sitting at Table Four?” Phil asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“When I said ‘anybody,’ I didn’t mean ‘anybody,’” said Kar-kette. “I meant the people at the table.”

“Someone saw you turn off the lights,” I said.

“They couldn’t have.”

Phil and I had fallen into our Ernest Hemingway The Killers act. We made a formidable pair. Karkette was most definitely intimidated from his toe of his red socks to his top green button.

“Red socks are a giveaway,” I said.

“Red … We were all wearing red socks,” Karkette said, looking from Phil to me and trying to decide which of us might be more reasonable.

“All?” I asked.

“The Dranabadurians,” he said. “We wear red socks in honor of Dranabadur. Red socks were his trademark. He’d make a move sort of like this.”

Karkette made a little turn.

“See, the socks sort of grab your attention,” he said. “He’d do it when he wanted that split part of a second to help draw attention from whatever trick he was performing.”

“You were all wearing red socks,” I repeated.

“All, even Marcus.”

“Okay,” said Phil wearily, pulling out his notebook. “The names of everyone at your table last night.”

“You’re going to ask them if I turned out the lights?” he said.

“We are,” I said. “And you’re going to tell us who was sitting at the table when the lights went out.”

“I see,” he said. “Elimination. Like Sherlock Holmes said, ‘When everything else is eliminated, whatever remains must be the answer.’”

“That’s stupid,” Phil said. “You never eliminate everything else. The names.”

Karkette thought for a moment and then gave us the names of Dutton, Steele, Masonick, and Beckstall.

“What about Freemont, Teel, and Benz?” Phil asked, looking at his list.

“They were at another table,” said Karkette as the door opened and two sailors who looked like they were about twelve walked in.

“Customers,” said Karkette, wedging his way between Phil and me.

Karkette made Hitler pass air. The sailor kids thought it was funny. But they were only twelve.

We went back out on Vine. Phil went over the list again and flipped his notebook closed.

“Unless we’re dealing with a conspiracy,” I said. “One of these guys is going to turn up missing from his seat when the lights went out.”

“Maybe,” said Phil with a familiar sigh, “but what will that give us? If he was switching the lights on and off, he couldn’t be killing Ott. He’ll have to give up whoever he was working with, whoever killed Ott.”

“Which we know wasn’t our client,” I said.

“Which we assume wasn’t our client,” said Phil. “Let’s get started.”

And start we did. We went to three apartments, a citrus warehouse, two offices, a golf club, and a bar before we made our way to the last person on our list, Leo Benz. Not one person on the list was a professional full-time magician. As Steele told us, there were only about sixty magicians in the entire country making a living from magic; most of them did kids’ birthdays or Kiwanis Club and Rotary Club dinners or dish nights at the local movie house.

“Best for last,” I said.

I rang the bell at the small freshly painted white house on a quiet side street in Van Nuys. We had chosen Leo Benz for last because he was closest to Phil’s house in North Hollywood.