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so did I.
    My supply of Toby Peters low-cost special agents was limited, especially if I wanted to make a few bucks on this deal. My pool included a fat myopic dentist, a retired wrestler, a midget who was temporarily out of town, and maybe Zanzibar Al, who was permanently out to lunch.
    If I wanted to pay a few bucks I could get Jack Ellis, who normally made his living as a hotel dick but had some free time since his disability. A trio of sailors on leave had thrown him down an elevator shaft. Jack had been hearing opera arias at odd times since then. There were a few down-and-out investigators in my league who I could get cheap but I’d have to tell them too much. MacArthur didn’t want anyone to know he was in the States.
    That left me, my Crosley, my .38, my bad back and my determination. I had no doubt that I could find Lansing. That wasn’t the problem. The question was, could I find him before he spent all the money or turned what he knew over to someone who might use it to ruin MacArthur’s political future? I had only one method. Start in the most obvious place, ask questions and follow leads, the good ones, the bad ones, the silly ones, the impossible ones. Follow leads till you found what you were looking for or till your client said “enough.”
    Lansing’s most recent Los Angeles address was the one in Pacific Palisades he shared with Melvin Grady Hower. Castle had already been there and probably had someone checking the place from time to time, but Major Castle wasn’t as devious as I was. I finished my sweet roll, swept the crumbs into my drawer, stuck my Dick Tracy badge into my pocket and considered taking my .38. I decided against it.
    When I stepped into the dental office, Shelly was singing “Mimi” in a blubbery Maurice Chevalier accent, his lower lip jutting out. The patient in Shelly’s chair watched him with faint amusement. There was something familiar about the thin man with the not-too-clean white cloth around his neck. He seemed to be about my age. His white hair was cut short and combed straight back and up. His mustache was darker than his hair but showing signs of gray. He looked like a gaunt but elegant scarecrow. I had at least twenty pounds on him though he looked like he might have an inch or two on me. His brown eyes turned on me and seemed to see something I wasn’t aware of.
    “Open, open, open,” Shelly said, and the gaunt man dutifully opened his mouth, his eyes never leaving mine. Shelly leaned over him, a particularly lethal, narrow and sharp steel instrument in his hand. I should have left but I wanted to place that face.
    Whatever Shelly did, it must have hurt, but the man in the chair didn’t move.
    “Just a second now,” Shelly said, his face now blocking that of the thin man in the chair. “Here we … go. Got it.”
    Shelly turned to me triumphantly, his glasses slipping down his moist nose, the bloody instrument in his hand. The man in the chair closed his mouth.
    “That will do it for today, Sam,” Shelly said to the patient. “I’ll check the X-rays and we’ll work on those teeth. Quite a challenge.”
    Shelly plunked the bloody instrument in the crowded sink, found his cigar in the ashtray and put it to his lips. A job well done.
    The man in the chair removed the now-bloody white cloth from around his neck and got up. He wore a tweed suit and dark tie, confirming that he was much too elegant for the Farraday.
    “One week,” the man said in a soft, determined voice.
    “One week and your mouth will look like Gable’s. You have the guarantee of Dr. Sheldon Minck,” Shelly said, leaning back on the sink, cigar in his mouth.
    “Day after tomorrow at seven in the morning,” the man said, glancing at me.
    “At nine, Sam,” Shelly said with a wave.
    The man moved past me through the reception room and out the door. When it closed, Shelly beamed.
    “See those duds, Toby? The man has money. Right off the street. Rush job. Mouth’s a mess. Alcohol,