Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

“You want to know what the caller told me?” Cawelti asked.

“Man or woman?” I asked.

“I’m in a good mood, Peters, so I’ll tell you. Man, high voice and a handkerchief or something over the phone. Caller said none other than Mr. Fred Astaire himself had murdered the prominent Mr. Arthur Forbes. Story I got was Forbes insisted that Astaire give him and his wife dance lessons and Astaire said he’d rather see them both dead. Astaire came here to have it out with Forbes. Forbes is dead.”

“Caller knew a hell of a lot,” I said.

“You let me worry about that, Peters. How about you tell me how you helped Astaire here kill Forbes and probably kill Luna Martin and Willie Talbott?”

“We got here a few seconds before you,” I said. “You can ask the desk clerk. We found the body and were on the way downstairs to call you.”

“That your best story?” Cawelti asked, looking at both of us as he sat comfortably with his hands folded and legs crossed.

“That,” said Astaire, “is the truth.”

“I can see you on the bottom of the Times front page,” Cawelti said, looking at Astaire. “You know the look they catch you with, your mouth open, eyes wide from the flash.”

“John,” I said.

“Captain,” he corrected.

“Captain,” I amended. “You and I have a long history. We don’t have to make Mr. Astaire a part of it.”

“I’m afraid we do,” Cawelti said with a sigh of false sympathy and a shake of his head.

“Look. .” I began but never got the new ploy on the table because Seidman was back.

“That was fast,” Cawelti said, looking up at him.

“Floor maid was cleaning a room,” Seidman said. “Flashed the badge and told her I needed the phone. Commissioner says no publicity, none on Astaire till we know for sure with a certainty he’s involved. Commissioner emphasized ‘no publicity’ and ‘with a certainty.’ ”

“You called the commissioner?” Cawelti said in disbelief.

“Yes,” said Seidman, “and the M.E. and everyone else.”

“You had no goddamn right to call the commissioner,” Cawelti said, pushing himself out of the chair. His face was crimson again.

“Figured he might want to know,” said Seidman evenly. “He seemed to appreciate it.”

“You,” Cawelti said, pointing a finger at Seidman, “are going to apply for a transfer from the Wilshire.”

“Already did. When you were promoted. And if I don’t get the transfer, I’ve got an offer from the Glendale Police. Good offer. War’s made a lot of departments shorthanded.” It was more than I had heard Steve Seidman say in the fifteen or so years I had known him.

“Get the hell out of here,” Cawelti shouted, losing the last of his cheerful mood.

Seidman looked at me and Astaire and moved out of the suite slowly, closing the door behind him.

“If you were to ask me. .” Astaire began.

“I’ll ask you plenty,” Cawelti said, turning on him. “But I’ll decide what to ask. Nobody is going to step on me, nobody. Not you, not the commissioner, not Louis Goddamn B. Mayer. I tore my way up. I did my job. I’ve got no friends. No family. Nothing but this job and my pride and I’m not going to lose them and I’m not going to let anybody, anybody, step on me. You get it?”

“Got it,” Astaire said, holding up his hands to indicate that he was backing off from verbal battle.

“Peters?” Cawelti said, turning on me.

I didn’t even answer.

“I know a bartender, a clerk at Ralph’s grocery,” Cawelti went on, having lost what little reserve of patience he had held back. “I’ve got a cat and that’s it. What I’ve got, I fought for. I deserve.”

“No one is arguing with you, John,” I said. “Captain.”

“Come on,” said Cawelti, motioning for us to get up.

We got up.

“We’ll have a nice talk in my office and wait for some results.”

“I really have to. .” Astaire began, looking at his watch.

“I’m getting calm,” Cawelti said, his voice dropping. “Do I look calm?”

“You’re getting there,” Astaire said.

“My old man died at the age of fifty,” Cawelti said. “Stroke. I’m calm. I don’t care what you have to or where you have to do anything. We are going to my office.”

And we went.

We had coffee in Cawelti’s office. When Phil was in here it was bare walls, table, and a couple of chairs, a monk’s cell. Cawelti had decorated. Citations covered one wall, along with photographs of John Cawelti shaking hands with mayors and movie people, including Joe E. Brown, Merle Oberon, Tyrone Power, and the Ritz Brothers. Every cop had photographs like this. Few of them put them on their office walls.

On the wall opposite the desk was an aerial map of the city and a big framed photograph of a man who looked suspiciously like John Cawelti.

“My father,” Cawelti said when he caught Astaire looking at the photograph. “Taught me everything I know. Made it to lieutenant before he died. Hated the sadistic son of a bitch, but he taught me.”

Cawelti drank some coffee. So did Astaire and I as we sat across from him.

We had been through the basics. Forbes’s call to me. My call to Astaire. I even told him about the shots that had been taken at me and I showed him the note I’d found in my front seat. “Anyone can write a note,” he said, hardly glancing at it and throwing it back at me in a ball.

“Not if they’re illiterate,” I said, pocketing the note.

“How’s this fit for a case?” Cawelti said. “Luna Martin was making demands on your client here. He hired you. You got rid of Luna Martin. Willie Talbott had some evidence about Astaire and Luna Martin. You got rid of Talbott. Then Forbes found out, told you to come over, said he was going to pickle a few of your digits, and you got rid of him. The two of you have been present at three murders in the last three days. I call that more than a coincidence.”

“And less than evidence,” I said.

“We didn’t kill anyone,” Astaire said. “This is crazy. If you’d just let me explain. .”

Cawelti took a hurried sip from his coffee, put it down, and held up a hand to stop Astaire.

The phone rang. Cawelti picked it up and said, “Captain Cawelti. . yes. . yes. . and that’s the best you can do? Thanks.”

He hung up and looked at us.

“Arthur Forbes was stabbed seven times in the chest and abdomen, probably with the knife he was holding onto. Can’t tell the exact time of death, but about the time you were both in that room. So, what have I got? Luna Martin had her throat cut. And Willie Talbott was shot with a thirty-eight. You own a thirty-eight, Peters.”

I reached under my jacket, took out my gun, and handed it to him. “They won’t match,” I said.

“And finally,” Cawelti said, laying the gun on the desk in front of him, “Arthur Forbes, alias Fingers Intaglia, takes a knife to the heart. Knife has no fingerprints. Anything either one of you have to say?”

“We want to call a lawyer,” I said.

“Leib?” asked Cawelti.

“Leib,” I confirmed.

“That. .” Cawelti began.

“Careful, John,” I said. “I plan to tell him everything you’ve said.”

Cawelti got up, drained the last of his coffee, and dropped the empty cup in the wastebasket next to his desk.

“You wait here,” he said, pointing to the floor, and off he went.

“You think. .” Astaire began when the door had closed, but I cut him short with a finger to my lips.

I grabbed the pad on Cawelti’s desk, turned it around, and with the pencil I took out of my pocket wrote, “Ten to one he’s listening to us.”

Astaire nodded and I crumpled the note and threw it in the wastebasket.