“No, mostly mistakes, bad timing, stupidity,” I said.
The pellet had barely penetrated the flesh. At the distance I had been shot, that was about the best the shooter could have hoped for other than hitting my eye.
“You’ll be fine,” said the kid doctor dressed in crumpled whites who looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. “In Casino if that had been a bullet, we would have pulled it out, splashed on some iodine and a bandage and handed you your rifle.” No overnight for me.
Two waiting uniformed cops took me to the Wilshire Station.
I knew the Wilshire Station. My brother had been a captain there. That was right after he had been a lieutenant and right before he had been busted back to lieutenant again.
Lieutenant John Cawelti, he of the pocked face, red hair parted in the middle, and perpetual look of badly concealed hatred for all things Pevsner or Peters, sat behind a desk in a small office.
He pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk and got up to close the door and stepped over to me.
“Where do we start?” Cawelti said standing over me.
The office hadn’t changed much since Phil had left it less than a month before. Same desk with a murky window behind in and a view of a brick wall. Same three chairs, one behind the desk, two in front of it. The top of the desk had a full in-box in the left corner and a full out-box in the right, with a few files laid out unevenly between them. A coffee-mug stain marked the top file. The only change I could see was the plaque on the wall across from the desk.
I turned my head to look at the plaque, ignoring Cawelti who hovered over me with Listerine breath. The plaque read: To John Merwin Cawelti, in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the Los Angeles Police Department’s annual picnic for the widows and orphans of our comrades who have fallen in the line of duty. Both the Mayor and the Chief of Police had signed it. About half the members of the department had the same plaque.
“Where do we start?” Cawelti insisted.
“Merwin?” I said turning my head and looking up at him.
He pointed a finger at me and jabbed it into the spot where the pellet had struck. I did more than wince. I clamped my teeth together and almost passed out.
“I want my lawyer,” I said.
“Why?” he asked. “You haven’t been accused of anything yet?”
“Then I want to leave,” I said, starting to get up.
I leaned quickly to my right to avoid the jabbing finger.
“You shot Birmingham,” he said.
“Cunningham, and I didn’t shoot him.”
“You shot him and went after the girl because she saw you shoot him. Then you shot her.”
“And then I shot myself,” I said.
“Yeah. And pitched the gun. We’re looking for it.”
“Ask the girl,” I said. “She’ll tell you I didn’t shoot her.”
“And she’ll tell me you didn’t shoot Cunningham, right?”
“The girl saw the shooter. She’ll give you a description.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Beard, turban, bullshit. We’ve got the beard and turban where you dropped them on the steps.”
“I was onstage about to be sawed in half by a buzz saw when Cunningham was shot,” I said.
“We don’t know exactly when he was shot.”
“Check with the doorman. Check with Gwen. They’ll tell you I couldn’t …”
“And I’ll tell you you could,” he said. “You’re working for the magician. Cunningham was trying to blackmail him. You shot him. Then you went after the witness.”
“I helped her, and who do you think shot me?”
“Shot yourself,” said Cawelti, face inches from mine.
“And threw the pellet gun away? Did you find it?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“You’ve got the other gun?” I asked.
“What other gun?”
“The one that was used to kill Cunningham,” I said. “That was no pellet hole.”
“You had plenty of time to dump it,” he said, finger hovering over my arm.
“Time for my lawyer, Merwin. Martin Raymond Leib,” I said.
Cawelti’s face was bright crimson. He reached out for my wounded shoulder, and I shuffled my chair backward. He took a step toward me.
The door behind him opened. I couldn’t see who it was. Cawelti was between me and the door. He stopped, turned his head, and came flying past me, hitting the wall.
Phil stood there, door open behind him.
A couple of detectives I recognized were in the doorway.
“You’re under arrest,” Cawelti shouted at my brother.
“For what?” Phil said.
“Assaulting a police officer,” Cawelti said, pushing himself away from the wall.
“You fell,” I said.
“Looked that way to me,” said one of the detectives in the door, a big bald sergeant named Pepperman, who had been mustered out of the army in 1919, the same year as my brother.
“Didn’t see it,” said the man next to him, Bill O’Keefe, who Phil had once pushed out of the way of the knife of a drugged-out Mexican kid named Orlejo Sanchez.
“Get the hell out of my office,” Cawelti said, taking a step toward Phil and then thinking better of it.
“You alright?” Phil said, ignoring Cawelti and looking at me.
“Lovely,” I said.
“Your brother killed a man tonight and shot a woman,” Cawelti said. “You don’t get out, you’re under arrest for interfering with a murder investigation.”
Phil turned his unblinking eyes on him.
“You’ve got nothing,” Phil said.
“At the least,” Cawelti said. “At the goddamn least, I’ve got him for leaving the scene of a crime, two crimes.”
“I was chasing the killer,” I said.
“Chasing yourself?” Cawelti asked.
“We’re going,” said Phil, motioning to me to follow him.
“Hold it,” said Cawelti. “You’re not a police officer anymore. I’m in charge here. I’m the law. You do what I goddamn tell you.”
“Ask nicely,” Phil said.
I knew the look. So did Cawelti. So did the two detectives standing in the doorway. Phil might be arrested. He might even be shot, but, if he lost his temper, John Merwin Cawelti would be in need of a very long period of recuperation.
Cawelti was breathing hard now as he said between his teeth,
“Please get the hell out of here.”
“Not without Tobias.”
“He’s now officially under arrest for murder,” said Cawelti. “You want to help him escape?”
Phil’s fists were clenched. He stepped toward Cawelti again. Cawelti retreated back, but this time he didn’t back down.
“He’s under arrest,” he said.
Phil stopped and said,
“He’ll be out of here in an hour.”
“Maybe,” said Cawelti.
“I’ll be outside,” Phil said. “Right outside.”
The two detectives in the doorway made way for him to leave. Cawelti strode across the room and closed the
