else in the room with the possible exception of the uniformed cop.
“O.K., Toby,” said Phil, “you have five minutes.” He jerked his head toward the door. Seidman and the uniformed cop followed him out of the door and closed it.
I looked at Fagin.
“I’m not the guy you’re looking for, buddy,” he said. “I was home sleeping when those guys took you. Honest.”
I sat on the edge of my brother’s desk and grinned down at Fagin.
“It was you, and I’m going to see that you get nailed for it,” I said, sounding tough and cynical.
Fagin’s attempt at honesty turned quickly to animal attack.
“I’ve got two terms against me in Folsom,” said Fagin; “if I go up to Quentin or the Rock for this, I’ll see to it that someone makes you sorry you were born.”
He may have meant it, and he may have been bluffing. The odds were even that if I sent him up, I’d get a knife or bullet in the back some night. I was willing to risk it, but I had some other ideas.
“I’ve been threatened by bigger tuna than you, sport,” I said, “but we might be able to work something out.”
He sat forward in his chair eagerly, a solid Humpty Dumpty.
“Who hired you to get me and why?”
“Delamater hired me,” he said. “That’s all I know. I don’t even know what he wanted from you. I was just hired muscle. It sounded like an easy job. He didn’t think we’d have to kill you. I didn’t want to kill you.”
“You’re all heart,” I said. “What did Delamater tell you about me, the job, anything?”
“Nothing.” He was sweating.
“You give me nothing. I give you nothing,” I said, forcing my eyes to keep from blinking.
“Yeah,” he growled.
“Yeah,” I growled back. He would barely qualify for cretin of the year, but he was all I had to work with. “Tell me what he told you.”
Fagin wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve and tried to think. It was a major effort.
“He said we were going to a guy’s place and throw a scare into him. That we might have to hurt him bad if he didn’t give us something we were looking for.”
“What?”
“Some kind of picture,” said Fagin. “But,” he went on, excited, “he said we didn’t want killing, for sure. He said she doesn’t want the guy killed, that’s you, unless we have to. That …”
“Hold it.” I put my hand on his arm, and he jumped. Concentrating on the story had taken all of his attention. “You said ‘she’?”
“Right,” said Fagin. “She, Delamater said ‘she’. We were doing the job for some woman, but he didn’t give her name or anything. Told us the pay was good.”
I walked to the door and called Phil in.
He and Seidman were drinking coffee.
Fagin looked up in fear.
“That’s not the man,” I said.
Fagin’s shit-eating grin filled the room.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” said Phil, shaking his head. Then to Fagin, “Get out before I get some Flit and use it on you.”
Fagin simply sat grinning.
“He means get out of here,” I said.
“Right, sure, thanks,” he beamed, plunked on a hat that came down to his ears, and went out the door.
“I don’t know what you’re playing, Toby,” Phil grunted wearily, “but I don’t like being used. That creep was the right one, and we all know it. What did you get out of him?”
“I’m not under arrest?”
“Not unless we find Simmons, and he brings charges,” said Phil, his hands folded. He was giving me a look of resignation.
“That wasn’t the right guy, Phil. I swear …”
“Get out.” His voice was so low I could hardly hear it.
“Look, Phil …” I started.
“You better go,” said Seidman, opening the door. I went.
At the corner drug store where I had been earlier that morning, I had a Pepsi and a Pecan Roll. Then I called Brenda Beaumont. The maid said she was busy. I said to tell her I had just talked to a friend of Mr. Delamater.
Brenda Beaumont was on the phone about a minute later.
“What do you want, Mr. Peters?” she said, as if I were interrupting her with a request for an autograph.
“Not what you were selling the other day,” I said. “I’ve got questions. Either you answer them for me or I give the whole mess to the Los Angeles police, and they can ask you. Like what was your husband talking to you about when he visited you this afternoon? Why did you try to have me messed up? And the best one, who killed Charlie Cunningham? Are you listening, Brenda?”
“I’m listening. I can’t talk now, tonight. Can you come over tomorrow night, about nine. I’ll tell you everything I know; but please don’t go to the police, for Lynn, if not for me.”
“Tomorrow night at nine, sharp,” I said. “You going to offer me your body or a fat bankroll again?” I was angry.
“Would it do any good?”
“None,” I said. I hung up.
By the time I got a yellow cab and picked up my car near Beaumont’s apartment, it was getting late. I should have called Adelman, but I was tired. I decided not to go to what was left of my apartment. My reasons weren’t aesthetic. Brenda Beaumont might have other friends, and my apartment was turning into a casting room for a gangster movie.
I knew where I wanted to go and headed there. It took me about half an hour to get to the apartment building in Culver City. I had the address memorized and found the place without any trouble. The name over the doorbell gave me a burst of youthful anticipation. At least that’s what I told myself. The feeling was more like vague hope.
Looking firmly at the name “Ann Peters” in white letters against a black background, I pressed the button and heard a soft chime bong somewhere inside the building. It was a freshly-built, elongated two-story white antiseptic building with cheap, but pleasant smelling carpets. I thought about pulling myself together, straightening my tie and forcing a smile.
No one answered the bell. I tried again and a buzzer sounded. I pulled the lobby door open just as the buzzing stopped and I stood for a second, my knees feeling weak. As I went up to the second floor, my tactics changed. Helplessness seemed a more likely key to success. I could see a door open at the end of the short corridor on the second floor and was sure about my tactics:
Ann stepped out in the hall and watched me as I approached. She had done something truly unfair since our divorce. She looked better. During some of our fights, I had warned her that she would go to fat when she hit 40, just like her mother, who could hardly walk because of the hereditary load she carried. Ann had always been full and dark and she had been hurt by the suggestion, because it was probably true. She had always fought back at me with a series of good ones about money, ambition, family.
I stood in front of her in the hallway. She was thinner than she had been when I saw her three years earlier. She didn’t just look better with her hair long and down and a clinging blue robe; she looked great.
“Hi,” I said with a smile.
Her hands were folded and she held her arms close to her body, unsure for a second of how to deal with me. Her frown softened.
“Toby, you look awful.” She stepped back and made it clear that I could enter her apartment.
“Thanks,” I said stepping in, “I was hoping for that. I had considered a ‘Hell, I’m going great,’ run down the hall, but I took the pathetic cat ploy instead.”
She shook her head and sighed. It made her breasts rise and my hopes with them.
“Toby,” she said looking at my face, “You didn’t have a choice. You’d look pathetic with a new suit, a shave
