Shelly beamed and nudged the dead man, who did not respond.
“I think you gave Mr. Shayne an overdose of gas,” I said.
Shelly leaned over and put his head against the chest of the man in his tilted chair.
“He’s alive. You trying to panic me, Toby?”
He moved away from Shayne and pointed his metal probe at the briefcase in my hand.
“What you got?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said.
“I don’t need grief, Toby. I don’t need jokes. I don’t need grief. I need Mildred. Remember the receptionist I was going to hire?”
“I thought it was a dental assistant,” I said, inching toward my office door.
“Whatever. Mildred objects. Jealous.”
“I’m sorry, Shel.”
“I’ll live,” he said, beaming at Dali. “Mr. Dali, you want a teeth cleaning? It’s on the house. I’ll get Shayne out of here for a half hour and-”
“I am not a
Shelly stuck the probe in the pocket of his once-white smock and fished out a card. He handed it to Dali, who showed me the faint bloody thumbprint in the comer.
“Perfect,” he said and followed me into my office. I closed the door and went behind the desk.
For some reason, I hoped he hated the closet.
“A tomb,” he whispered, putting his right index finger to his lips and pointing with his left index finger at the photograph of my brother, my father, our dog Kaiser Wilhelm, and me when I was a kid.
“The dead,” I said, sitting behind my desk and plopping the briefcase in front of me. “Guy in the middle’s my old man. I know he’s dead. So’s the dog. My brother, the big one, is alive and a cop. You want some coffee?”
“I wish to call Gala,” he said, sitting down across from me.
I pushed the phone toward him and pulled out my notebook to remind myself to bill him for the call.
After the twenty-minute call, in frantic French with Dali bouncing up and down, we sat looking at each other for about ten minutes.
“You play cards?” I asked.
“You have Tarot cards?”
“No.”
“I do not play cards. You have paper, pencils?”
That I had. I fished into my top desk drawer, around frayed photographs of Phil’s kids and pieces of things best forgotten, to find some crumpled sheets of typing paper. I also found a few pencils. I handed the package to Dali, who cleared away a space on the desk, looked at the wall, and said.
“Do not speak to Dali until he speaks to you.”
“You got a deal. Mind if I use the phone?”
“Call-but do not, I say, do
It was nearly ten. I didn’t want to tie up the phone too long in case Taylor wanted to make his move early, if he was going to make any move at all.
I called Ruth, reminded her that I would pick up the kids after school on Wednesday, and asked how she was doing. She told me that surgery had been rescheduled for Wednesday morning.
“I could get Mrs. Dudnick to stay with the kids,” she said. “And my sister would come from Chicago if I called her, but I’d rather wait till I was through the operation before I told my family. And Toby, the kids love you. They’ll … I hate to ask, but I’ll feel better if you’re here. And Mrs. Dudnick’s right next door.”
“I’ll be there, Ruth,” I said. “First thing Wednesday morning, as long as it takes.”
“Phil says you’d volunteer and then not show up. He says I should have Mrs. Dudnick ready.”
“This time Phil’s wrong about me. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Toby,” she said.
“I’ll talk to you, Ruth.”
And then I hung up.
“Illness,” Dali said without looking up from his drawing. “I can smell it, feel it in my fingers.”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to you.”
“You are not, but Dali can talk if he must.”
He stopped suddenly, put the pencil down and looked at me. There sat a man I had not seen before-his face aged, his mustaches wilted just a drop, and his voice down an octave as he spoke slowly.
“Mr. Peters, I am not jesting when I say the painting must be found, must be returned to me. Dali will be destroyed if the painting is seen by a critic, a gallery owner, a collector. Dali will be destroyed as surely as he will be destroyed if Taylor kills me as he has killed his accomplices.”
“I’ll find the painting,” I said. “And no one’s going to shoot you.”
Then, suddenly, the Salvador Dali mask-eyes wide, hands dancing-was back on. He leaned forward to draw and the phone rang.
“Toby Peters, Confidential Inquiries.”
“Peters?” asked Taylor.
“I just said that.”
“You have the money?”
“I have the money.”
Dali looked up when I mentioned the money. The tips of his mustaches tingled like the antennae of an ant trying to feel the wind.
“Cash?”
“No, war bonds. Taylor, name a place and a time.”
“I’m nervous, Peters,” he said. “Can you understand that?”
“You’re looking for sympathy from me?”
“I just want you to under-”
“I asked a question, Taylor. Last night when I asked you a question you tried to turn me into confetti. Let’s do business.”
“It’s ten-thirty,” he said. “I’ll give you one hour to get to Slip Number Four at the San Pedro shipyard.”
“Have the clock and the painting,” I instructed.
“Come alone,” he said. “Or you don’t see me.”
I hung up. Dali was looking at me.
“Stay here,” I said, picking up the briefcase. “Shelly will get you something to eat. What do you like to eat?”
“Sea urchins,” he said, turning the piece of paper he had been drawing on so I could see it. It was a rough sketch of me dressed in a lace collar. It might be worth something someday. I opened the briefcase and eased it in so the bills would cushion it.
“Lovely,” I said. “I’ll be back in three hours. Stay in the office. If you need the toilet, Shelly will give you the key-it’s down the hall across from the elevator. There’s a radio in the bottom drawer of my desk. Don’t answer the phone. Shelly will take care of it.”
“You will get my painting?”
“I will get your painting,” I reassured him, and went back into Shelly’s office, closing the door to my cubbyhole behind me.
The man in the chair, Shayne, still looked dead. Shelly stood next to him reading a magazine and chomping on what was left of a cigar. He looked up at me.
“I’m waiting for the stuff to set,” he explained. “Getting an impression for a bridge.”
“Stuff? Is that what it’s called?”
Shelly shrugged, dropped the magazine on the corpse’s lap and said, “Tell me the truth, Toby. You think Dali needs dental work?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t even ask him. Keep him in my office and get him something to eat later.”
“Please,” he prompted, tilting his head back to keep his glasses from falling.
