'Don't think so, Gunther,' I said, stepping out.
'Without knowing how it is spelled, it is difficult to pursue.'
'I appreciate that,' I said, pulling out my car key.
'The most likely solution, however,' Gunther said, 'is that KG. are initials, initials of the next victim.'
'That one I like,' I said. 'Keep at it.'
'I shall,' he said as I hurried down the cement path to the curb where my Crosley was parked.
I got in, started the engine, and waved at Gunther, who was standing solemnly under the photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt nailed to the white wood behind him. Mrs. Plaut thought it was Marie Dressier.
Chapter 4
The Farraday Building is downtown, just off of Ninth Street on Hoover. Parking on the street is a game of chance. The other options aren't much better. No-Neck Arnie's three blocks away, where I'd have to pay half a buck each in and out, or the alleyway behind the Farraday, where derelicts were known to nest, demand tribute and ignore the sacred trust of watching my Crosley.
I found a magical space on the street. Right in front of Manny's taco shop. An omen or a setup for disappointment?
No one was in the lobby which, as always, smelled scrubbed and antiseptic thanks to the efforts of the landlord, Jeremy Butler-poet, former professional wrestler, and, at the age of sixty-three, recent husband and father. The Farraday was his legacy for his wife, Alice, and his infant daughter, Natasha. The bald giant had vowed to keep it free of vagrants, vermin, and mildew.
According to Jeremy, who knew about such things, the Farraday was on the site of the last battle of the Mexican War in 1848. The two-year battle with Spain over who owned California had ended with a rebellion not by the Spanish army but Californios, the descendants of the original Spanish settlers going back to the 1500s. In August of 1848, after the United States had formally defeated Mexico, the U.S. military commander in Los Angeles, Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, gave the defeated Californios a list of rules about how they were to behave under the new flag. The Californios, who had never considered themselves particularly Mexican and didn't find the U.S. Army or its un-derranked commander in California particularly civilized, put together a rebellion of ranch workers, land owners, and townspeople among the four thousand men, women, and children who lived in Los Angeles. Under the leadership of Andres Pico, brother of the colorfully named governor of Lower California, Pio Pico, the volunteer band did what the Spanish had been unable to do. They threw the American army out of Los Angeles. Gillespie returned. The Californios threw him out once more. It was this second battle which Jeremy claimed was fought on the site of the Farra-day Building.
When Gillespie returned the next time, a month later, with more troops and the title of Military Commander of the South, the Californios were seriously outmatched and they surrendered at Campo La Cienega. Now, almost a hundred years later, the descendants of the Californios, and those who claimed they were, had still not forgiven the U.S. and its army.
I opened the lobby door and stepped into the broad open inner lobby that reached six stories high, with offices on each level. There was an elevator, an ancient, open cage, but I was in a hurry. I climbed, baby-talking my back, asking it to be calm and reasonable.
There was a skylight, small dark panes of glass in the ceiling six stories above the open tiled lobby. The sunlight and dim landing bulbs were enough to light my way past tiers of baby photographers, fortune tellers, talent agencies, importers of who-knows-what, costume jewelers, and publishers of pornography. I was the only private investigator. Sheldon Minck, D.D.S., Master of Dental Hygiene, was the only dentist. We shared an office on the fifth floor.
No, we didn't share an office. Shelly had the office. I sublet a closet with the window overlooking the alley. My office wasn't much larger than the dressing room of the late Al Ramone.
The outer-office door was open. I went in. The lights were on. Bad sign. Shelly was here. Price had probably talked to him. The tiny waiting room was relatively clean, the magazines-Life, Colliers, Woman's Day, and Look- were piled on the small table hi front of the three chairs.
I went through the inner door and found Sheldon Minck sleeping in his dental chair, his arms folded over one of his magazines, his stained white smock bunched under his neck. His thick glasses had slipped perilously toward the end of his nose and his cigar looked like a dark springboard, bouncing with each breath. Shelly must have sensed my presence. He dropped the magazine and swatted the top of his head.
'Ugg,' he cried, staggering forward out of the chair, opening his eyes, swinging at some real or imagined insect with his fluttering magazine. He tottered back into my arms.
'You were dreaming, Shel,' I said, straightening him up.
'Wha?'
'Dreaming,' I repeated, turning him around to face me.
I straightened his smock, marveling at his ability to keep his glasses on his nose and cigar in his teeth while hi full flight from a nightmare.
'Toby,' he said.
'Yes, Shel.'
He took the cigar from his mouth and said, 'Publishing.'
'Publishing, Shel?'
'Came to me in the dream,' he said, slapping the magazine and moving to the sink, where he turned on the cold-water tap, cupped his hand, and took a drink.
'A dream?'
'Yeah,' he said, turning back to me, a trickle of water on his chin, his cigar back in his mouth. 'Tooth Talk, a magazine, and here's the beauty part, for patients, people who have something wrong with their teeth. Everybody's got something wrong with their teeth. We'll have articles on celebrities with great teeth. Who's got great teeth?'
'Lassie,' I said.
'Joking,' he said, returning to his dental chair, 'but why not? Keeping the teeth of movie animals clean and cavity-free. Great article. Short stories about teeth. Poetry about teeth. Ads, we'll fill it with ads.'
Shelly's eyes, huge behind the thick glasses, got even wider in anticipation of the ad revenue.
'Coloring your teeth, a new beauty concept,' he said, looking up at the ceiling. 'Remember my idea about that?'
'Vividly,' I said.
'Dentists who wanted to write would have a place to send their ideas, their creative work. Even, why not, drawings, paintings. By dentists, for dentists.'
Shelly was out of his chair now, shaking his head as new ideas sprang from whatever he had eaten for breakfast.
'Sounds like a good idea to me, Shel,' I said.
'Yeah,' he said with a grin. 'How about this? Special section at the end of each issue for kids. Cartoon. Jimmy Chew versus Sammy Grinder. Jimmy's a handsome white incisor who takes care of himself. Sammy Grinder is covered in buildup, maybe even has a kind of five-o'clock shadow. Ideas like this. Start small. Work it up. Maybe get a few of those movie clients of yours to invest.'
'Worth a try,' I said.
'Yeah,' he said, dreamily rubbing his palms together as if he were trying to start a tire.
Then he stopped suddenly and a new look appeared as he turned his head to me.
'You've never agreed with any idea I've ever had.'
'This is an exception,' I answered. 'It's so…'
'You want something,' he said, advancing on me, a roly-poly ball of white-smocked suspicion. 'What?'
'Small favor,' ladmitted.
'Small?' He was a foot away now, a good eighteen inches closer than I wanted nun. 'Ah,' he said.
'You hired me on a contingency basis to collect a bill for dental work from a guy named Al Ramone,' I said,
