said.
“He come here last night?”
“Wasn’t on duty overnight,” said Cotton. “That was Moe Schroeder, definitely a veteran. Mr. Forbes’s car was here when I got here though. Six o’clock in the A.M.”
“See you in a while,” I said, turning toward the hotel.
“Mr. Forbes is not a veteran,” he called after me.
I stored this valuable information and walked the half block to the entrance of the Monticello. The place was just coming alive. A handful of people were heading out for breakfast and another handful were gabbing and dozing in the lobby. They looked like they were waiting for a tour bus.
The fey desk clerk I had talked to the day before was behind the desk, dealing with a guest who complained with both hands. She was frantic about something and the clerk was responding with perfect calm. He saw me cross to the elevator and gave me a nod.
I was alone in the elevator. I checked my.38 and put it loosely in the holster. God protect anyone in the room, including me, if I had to use it. The elevator eased to eight and I got out. It all looked familiar. Room 813 was the last one down the corridor. I knocked and waited. Nothing. I knocked again and the door opened.
Fred Astaire was standing in the doorway. He was dressed completely in black-trousers, shirt, with a red tie and no jacket. He looked both ways down the corridor and pulled me into the room, closing the door behind me.
“Look at this,” he said.
I looked around the room. Standard hotel-suite living room. Big, lots of light-colored old French-looking furniture, a great view. The same room I’d been in before. On the coffee table in front of a Louis-the-something sofa sat the wire recorder Willie Talbott’s and Luna Martin’s call had been recorded on. Someone had beat the hell out of the machine. My guess was the job had been done by a baseball bat or a sledgehammer.
“I see,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” Astaire said, motioning me to follow him to the open door to the left.
We stood in the doorway. The window drapes were up and the morning sun spread like a blanket over the late Arthur Forbes. He was naked and on his back. His eyes were open and seemed to be fascinated by something on the ceiling. I looked up. There was nothing there. I looked back at Forbes’s body. His chest was a wet, dark-red pool. The handle of a knife stuck out of his belly. Forbes’s hands were clasped around the handle.
“Suicide?” Astaire asked.
“Multiple wounds,” I said. “You don’t commit suicide by stabbing yourself six or seven times. It looks like he was trying to get the knife out when he died. I’d say you don’t have to give any more dance lessons to Arthur Forbes.”
I motioned to Astaire to stay at the doorway and went to the side of the bed, being careful not to touch anything. I checked Forbes’s fingers. They were all there.
“What happened?” I asked.
Astaire shrugged and said, “I came. I knocked. The door was open a crack. I stepped in, saw the wire recorder, and then found. . him. You knocked a minute or two later.”
“You touch anything?”
Astaire closed his eyes and tried to think. “Doorknobs, bedpost.”
“Good,” I said, wiping both bedposts with the end of the bedspread. “I think you should quietly get out of here and forget you came.”
“Someone may have seen me,” he said. “I think the desk clerk recognized me.”
“I’m sure the desk clerk recognized you,” I said, looking around for a clue and seeing none. “We lock the door behind us and say we knocked and got no answer.”
“Can’t do that, Toby,” Astaire said.
“You don’t tell lies?” I said, moving past him into the living room and trying to remember if I had touched anything but the wreckage of the wire recorder.
“Not illegal ones,” he said.
“How was Forbes as a dancer?” I asked, looking at Astaire.
“Terrible, why?”
“Three bad dancers are dead,” I said.
“You think someone is killing people who can’t do the fox-trot?”
“No,” I said. “Look, you don’t have to lie. But you don’t have to be here when the police come. We go somewhere. I call the police, tell them where to find Forbes, and you go home or wherever you were going. If the police come to talk to you, tell them we reported the murder and on my advice you went home. You buy that?”
“I’m thinking,” Astaire said.
“Think on the way downstairs,” I said and went to the front door.
“I don’t have to think about it,” said Astaire with a sigh. “I’m calling the police from the lobby and waiting for them.”
“Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug and opened the door to the hallway.
Captain John Cawelti was standing there, his hand up to knock. Behind him was Steve Seidman.
“Captain, we were on the way down to call you,” I said. “Forbes is in the other room, dead.”
“I know,” said Cawelti, touching his center-parted red hair to be sure it hadn’t all fallen out.
He moved past us with Seidman behind him. I mouthed, “Where’s Phil?” Seidman shook his head.
“Your brother is on special assignment,” Cawelti said, looking down at the remnants of the wire recorder. “I wanted this one. Got a call that Arthur Forbes had been murdered and that none other than Mr. Fred Astaire had done him in.”
Cawelti turned suddenly and faced Astaire, who gave the red-faced captain a patient smile.
“Big name? Big publicity?” I asked.
“Me?” said Cawelti. “Would I care about that kind of thing?” He moved to the bedroom and stood for a beat before going in. Steve Seidman stayed with us and whispered, “Cawelti assigned Phil to host a group of small-town mayors wanting a tour and rundown on the L.A. Police Department and its operations.”
It was the very thing Phil hated most and Cawelti knew it.
“Mr. Forbes, him dead,” said Cawelti, emerging from the bedroom with a smile. “Seidman, call the M.E., investigation unit, fingerprints, the usual. And don’t use the phones in here.”
“Right, Captain,” Seidman said, moving to the door and out.
Cawelti was happy. He motioned for us to sit in two of the living-room chairs while he took another. He should have taken us out of the room instead of sitting us down on potential evidence.
“You want to know what the caller told me?” Cawelti asked.
“Man or woman?” I asked.
“I’m in a good mood, Peters, so I’ll tell you. Man, high voice and a handkerchief or something over the phone. Caller said none other than Mr. Fred Astaire himself had murdered the prominent Mr. Arthur Forbes. Story I got was Forbes insisted that Astaire give him and his wife dance lessons and Astaire said he’d rather see them both dead. Astaire came here to have it out with Forbes. Forbes is dead.”
“Caller knew a hell of a lot,” I said.
“You let me worry about that, Peters. How about you tell me how you helped Astaire here kill Forbes and probably kill Luna Martin and Willie Talbott?”
“We got here a few seconds before you,” I said. “You can ask the desk clerk. We found the body and were on the way downstairs to call you.”
“That your best story?” Cawelti asked, looking at both of us as he sat comfortably with his hands folded and legs crossed.
“That,” said Astaire, “is the truth.”
“I can see you on the bottom of the
“John,” I said.
“Captain,” he corrected.
“Captain,” I amended. “You and I have a long history. We don’t have to make Mr. Astaire a part of it.”
“I’m afraid we do,” Cawelti said with a sigh of false sympathy and a shake of his head.
