Read Buried Caesars for Free Online Page A

drinking. Do you know what he wants?”
    “Pain,” I ventured.
    “No,” sighed Shelly. “He wants me to put his mouth in shape so he can join the army. At his age.”
    “What’s his name, Shel?” I said.
    “Sam.”
    “Sam what?”
    “Sam. I don’t know. I’ll have him fill out a card when he comes back. He gave me fifty bucks cash in advance. Who needs names? But you want names, I’ll get you names. You know where I put those cards?”
    He moved to a file cabinet covered by a mess of old magazines, bills, letters that had never been answered, and searched the top of each drawer in the hope that a blank patient card would magically appear.
    “Didn’t bat an eye when I told him what it would cost,” Shelly gloated. “Not an eye. Come to think of it, he didn’t bat an eye when I worked on him, and he didn’t want gas. Said he had some lung problems. Can’t take gas. Man’s a class act, Toby. Take my word for it. A banker or something.”
    “Lucky he found you,” I said, moving to the door.
    “Lucky,” Shelly agreed, finding an ancient dental journal that looked promising. “Want to know where I went yesterday?” he went on, moving to the dental chair.
    “Not particularly,” I said, opening the door to the reception room.
    “Suit yourself,” Shelly said with a grin I didn’t like. “Suit your very own self.”
    I didn’t like his I’ve-got-a-secret smirk, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. I left the office and went into the empty corridor. Somewhere, probably in Madame Sylverstre’s School of Music on the fourth floor, a man was singing scales in a desperate but elusive search for eight consecutive notes. I moved down the stairs slowly, no plan in mind other than to get to Pacific Palisades and do what I had to do.
    Hoover Street was crowded with late-morning shoppers, soldiers, sailors and marines in uniform, and young women shoppers carrying packages. The non-package-carrying women would hit the streets just before dark and they would be selling, not shopping.
    I turned the corner at Tenth, went halfway up the block and turned into the alleyway. This wasn’t the most direct route to my car. It would have been easier to go out the back door of the Farraday the way I had entered, but I’d heard the slight creak of linoleum when I hit the third-floor landing. By the time I had reached the Farraday lobby I was fairly sure I was being followed. When I turned the corner on Tenth I was certain. I stopped in the alley and waited.
    It was Shelly’s patient, Sam.
    We stood face to face. I wasn’t sure I could take him. The man was rail-thin and sunken-cheeked, but there was something in his face that made me think this was a man who didn’t know how to give up. He was certainly a man who didn’t back away.
    The pad-pad of laceless shoes came behind me as I stood waiting, ready.
    “Is he after your limo, Peters?” Zanzibar asked behind me. “If he’s after your limo, I’ll crown him. We got a deal.”
    “We got a deal, Al,” I said. “He’s not after my car.”
    “Then what’s he after?” Zanzibar Al asked, reasonably.
    It was a good question. I let it stand. The traffic moved by us a few feet away, ignoring the drama in the alley.
    “What’s he after?” Zanzibar Al repeated. “Geez damn. The world is one hell of a flash sometimes. You know what I mean?”
    “I know what you mean,” Sam said, a small smile on his thin lips. “I simply want to talk to Mr. Peters for a minute or two.”
    “You could have knocked on my door,” I said.
    “Old habit,” Sam said. “I used to be in the business. Pinkerton. I guess I’m not as good a shadow man as I used to be. That, or you’re damn good.”
    “Let’s say I’m damn good. It’ll make us both feel better,” I said.
    “I feel better,” Zanzibar Al said to himself behind me.
    I couldn’t figure Sam. My first thought was that MacArthur or Castle had sent him to keep an eye on me, but he could have done that without