represented.
I went home and to my room, checking to be sure that no prowl car was hovering in wait. And then I slept and it was the sleep of the just-deep, weary and undisturbed by dreams. My morning task would be simple: Find, confront and accuse Lombardi. If that didn’t work, I could throw myself on the mercy of my brother and the district attorney, neither of whom was known to be particularly merciful.
Both the sun and Mrs. Plaut were in my room when I woke up. The sun was full of energy and pride, having broken through a week of stubborn, cold clouds. Mrs. Plaut’s energy was no less determined. She stood on a wooden chair and was either adjusting or removing the portrait of Abraham Lincoln from my wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked. Fortunately she didn’t hear me. As it was, she nearly toppled from the chair.
“What are you doing?” I shouted when she made it safely to the floor, portrait in hand. She heard that and turned to me with her lips in a straight, resolute line.
“I am removing the portrait of Uncle Ripley,” she said. “I am also removing the bedspread and the doilies from the sofa. These are precious items for me, and it is not safe for them in this room, especially if you plan to continue to stab people and do who knows what else.”
She scooped up the doilies and the bedspread. I was happy to see them go.
“And another thing,” she said, marching to the door. “You will have to buy your own knives. Mr. Gunder,” she said, using the name she had settled on for Gunther, “explained to me about those men being spies and you being a government exterminator. Frankly, as you know, I have always been a Republican.”
With that statement of purpose Mrs. Plaut left the room with her recovered treasures, and I stood up to trudge to the bathroom, which was unoccupied, examine my scratches, take a shower and shave.
When I got back to my room, I made some five-minute Cream of Wheat and sat eating it with milk in the same chair recently occupied by two burly corpses.
I was pouring my second bowl when a knock came at the door. If it was the cops, I had nowhere to go in my underwear so I simply said “Come in” and went on eating. It was Gunther. The temperature was going up slowly, but Gunther was a cautious type. He entered wearing a suit, tie and vest, which probably meant he was going nowhere but had dressed for work.
“Toby, you are all right?” he said with real concern, eyeing the contusions.
“I’m fine, Gunther, just some scratches from a romp in the woods,” I said and offered him some Cream of Wheat. He said it was after noon and he had already eaten lunch.
“I spent much of yesterday watching the man Bowie, whom I followed surreptitiously from the boxing arena,” said Gunther. “He went to his home and remained there. I returned here last night.”
“Thanks, Gunther,” I said, tilting the bowl to get the last of the Cream of Wheat. “Anything else new?”
I got up and went to my closet. The remaining urban combat dress was sparse. I put on a pair of dingy dark trousers, a relatively clean white shirt I had been saving for an emergency, my shoulder holster and gun, a dark tie and a jacket I’d had since before my marriage to Ann. The jacket always made me think about Ann. She never wanted me to wear it, thought it was too long, out of style and ugly. It had been ripped up the back and sewn with the wrong color thread, which any human with reasonable interest could see.
“There is something else you should be informed of, Toby,” added Gunther, sitting in the single soft chair. “Two policemen were here much of yesterday, according to the other residents. Mrs. Plaut welcomed them but seemed to have driven them to despair. They departed but said they would return this day.”
“Thanks, Gunther,” I said, adjusting my tie and turning around. “How do I look?”
Gunther was a good friend. He lied. “Quite passable,” he smiled. “Another pair of pants might …”
“All I’ve got,” I said.
“Quite passable,” Gunther repeated.
Below us the doorbell rang.
“Maybe the two police officers,” said Gunther, rising and hurrying to the door to open it. I stepped after him quickly.
The ringing went on, and that was followed by pounding at the door. The residents of Mrs. Plaut’s knew better than to try to break through the sound barrier to her. We simply used our keys or gave up if the door was locked, which it seldom was.
“Anybody in there?” came a voice from below.
“That, I believe, is one of the police officers,” said Gunther.
I recognized Cawelti’s voice and nodded to Gunther as I stepped past him into the hall. We both heard the front door open. Cawelti whispered to someone with him. “If his car is here, maybe he was dumb enough to come back. Get up the stairs. I’ll cover the back door.”
I went to the bathroom in four soft steps and closed the door most of the way so I could watch my room and the stairway. A burly cop I recognized trudged up the stairs, with his gun drawn, as quietly as he could. Gunther stepped back into my room. The cop didn’t see him, but he moved cautiously to my door and stepped in. I got out of the bathroom and tiptoed to my room when I heard Gunther’s voice.
“I simply have not seen him,” said Gunther, spotting me over the shoulder of the cop as I waved and sidled past the open door.
“Are you some kind of German?” asked the policeman suspiciously.
“I am Swiss,” said Gunther with real indignation.
Cawelti wasn’t in sight when I got to the bottom of the stairs. He was probably waiting at the kitchen door to block my exit. I went through the front door and ran the half-block to my Buick. I was just pulling down the street when Cawelti came rushing around Mrs. Plaut’s with gun in hand to see me. I made a quick turn over someone’s lawn and sped down the street till I hit Fountain Avenue. I turned left, slowed down and then made a left on Western and drove to Melrose, where I made a left again and headed for downtown and my office.
I parked in back of a cleaning store on Ninth. The spot was reserved for the owner, but I knew the owner didn’t have a car to drive. His name was Schoenberg, and I brought him what little cleaning I had. He had complained about being unable to get tires for his car and how he had to take the bus to work.
The rear fire door of the Farraday had no outside handle, but I knew Jeremy Butler kept it open when he worked, and since he worked almost every day, I assumed it would be open. Saturday was no day of rest for either the neighborhood bums or Jeremy Butler. I was right. On the way up the stairs, I spotted Jeremy on his knees, scrubbing away.
“I think it’s tar or gum or some substance from hell,” he said, sitting and looking at me. He hesitated, put his brush down and looked at me from his scar-lidded eyes. “I lost that man Fargo Thursday. I’m sorry, Toby.”
“It’s all right, Jeremy,” I said. “I found him. Any police around here?”
“That Cawelti, the one with the temper, was here,” Jeremy said, looking at the spot on the stairs. “We didn’t exchange conversation.”
Jeremy and Cawelti had had a run-in a few months earlier when Cawelti had confronted me in the lobby of the Farraday. It was my considered opinion that Cawelti’s life was a series of run-ins punctuated by violence.
“I’m going up to the office for a minute,” I said. “If Cawelti shows up, try to let me know. If not, let’s take a walk when I come down. I think I need more of your help.”
Jeremy nodded and went back to the stair, his massive right arm bearing down with soap and suds.
My visit to the office was practical. I needed more bullets for my.38, and I had some in my desk drawer. I had used the gunful I had in my duel with Fargo and Gelhorn.
Shelly was working on a patient when I went through the door. He glanced over his shoulder at me, frowned and went back to the woman in the chair.
“I haven’t been here, Shel,” I said, stepping quickly to my office.
Shelly grunted, and the woman in the chair tapped her foot on the footrest in impatience or pain. I voted for pain.
“Mildred’s angry,” he said, and then he mumbled something like, “Where is that damned frubble- squeezer?”
“Sorry,” I said, stepping back to the doorway.
“Mildred found out I drove Carmen home from the fights,” he said, attacking the mouth of the woman in the chair with the frubble-squeezer. “She’s jealous.”
“I’ll call her as soon as I’ve got things settled on the Cooper business,” I said, reassuringly.
