Now You See It

“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.

“Just a minute. Just a minute,” came a woman’s voice. “Hurrying, hurrying.”

The door opened and a little heavy-set woman in her sixties stood before us. Her dyed blonde hair was wrapped in curlers and her blue dress covered with little yellow circles hung almost to the floor.

“You’re not the mail lady,” she said.

“We are not,” I agreed. “We’d like to talk to Leo Benz.”

“Why?”

“We have some questions,” Phil said.

“What questions?”

“Is he here?” I tried.

“I can answer whatever questions you’ve got,” she said.

“Not these,” I said before Phil could explode. “It’s about last night.”

Phil took a step forward. She put her rotund body between him and the inside.

“Last night Leo was at the movies,” she said. “He saw that new movie with Pat O’Brien. Marine Raiders. You want to know about the movie, ask me. I saw it.”

“Last night Leo was at a dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel,” I said. “A man was murdered. Your husband is a witness.”

“He’s my son,” she said. “And he … that lying little son-of-a-bitch. Are you cops?”

We didn’t answer.

She turned her head over her shoulder and screamed, “Leo, get your behind down here, you lying little twerp. The police are here.”

Someone whined something inside the house. I couldn’t tell what it was.

“He didn’t kill anybody,” she said. “Leo’s not capable. If he could kill someone, he would have killed me years ago.”

She turned her head again and screamed even louder, “L-E-O.”

And behind her came the clap of feet.

Leo Benz, in all his lack of glory, stood revealed when his mother stepped back from the door. He was barefoot, wearing white boxer shorts and an undershirt. He needed a shave.

“I know you,” he said, pointing at us and stepping behind his mother.

“Leo, we’ve got questions,” Phil said.

“I don’t have any answers,” he said.

Leo’s mother turned and thumped her son on the head with the palm of her right hand.

“Answer their questions,” she said. “And then you’ll answer to me.”

Leo Benz, sans tux, beard, and shoes, looked like the kind of fat kid other kids like to poke in the stomach in the schoolyard.

Phil and I walked in the house and Leo’s mother closed the door behind us.

Leo backed into the living room, his mother moving ahead of him to sit in a faded red padded chair with her arms folded. There wasn’t much furniture, just a few chairs like the one Leo’s mom was in and a sagging couch covered in what looked like blue fur with patches worn down to the skin surface of the imaginary animal it had been taken from.

Leo backed against the couch and sat. Phil and I stood over him.