Read Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) for Free Online

“You don’t come in and pull patients out of my office and …” He stopped, realizing that he had just shoved one of my clients in his chair, and not for the first time. Anyone who came to see me risked mutilation at the hands of the Beast of Bad Breath.
    Louis looked at both of us without expression. He had wandered into the heavyweight warmup before the main event. Louis was dressed in a light gray suit that looked as if it had been pressed by a maniac who tolerated no lines. I couldn’t guess the cost, but it must have been at least ten times that of the broken lots I picked up for ten bucks from Hy’s Clothes for Him in Hollywood.
    “Mister Peters,” he said, trying to work his way into the act.
    “We’ll go in my office,” I said, pointing to the door, which he looked at with the knowing eyes of one who knows a closet when he sees one. He shrugged and walked toward the door.
    “Toby …” Shelly said aggressively, adjusting his glasses once more, poking his cigar in my general direction and preparing a new complaint.
    “Shelly, what the hell is this ‘discreet investigations’ crap on the door?” I threw in before he could attack.
    He pulled his cigar back. To the ceiling he said, “See, you do a favor for someone you thought was a friend and what thanks do you get?”
    God didn’t answer him, so I did. “Discreet,” I said. “It sounds like … like …”
    “Divorce cases,” he said. “You could use some. That’s where the money is in your business.”
    “How would you know?” I said. I opened the door for Louis and let him walk in ahead of me.
    “The war,” Shelly quacked behind me as I stepped in. “Infidelity, separations, broken marriages. The whole fabric of society is coming unraveled. An enterprising man sees where the …”
    I stepped into my office and closed the door. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Have a seat.”
    I could have said, “Have the seat,” since there was only one available to him unless he took the one behind the desk, which was clearly mine. Louis sat, and I moved behind the desk and into my wooden swivel chair. Behind me, the sun came through the only window and put Louis into a shaft of light. He glanced around the room nervously. What he saw was a gray cubbyhole with two rectangles hanging on the wall. One was my dusty private investigator’s license and the other a photograph of my father, my brother, me, and our dog Kaiser Wilhelm when I was nine. My father and the Kaiser were both dead. Phil and I were generally acknowledged to be alive.
    Louis kept looking and I gave him a few seconds to get as close to comfortable as he could. I checked my mail and found a letter from the Rosicrucians telling me that war was raging. I knew that. They told me that their ancient teaching could help prepare for victory and peace. Another letter had a flyer telling me I could wake up my liver bile with Calomel. I wondered what would happen if I accidentally did wake up my liver bile, which must have been asleep now for at least forty years. Would it make a new man of me or clamor to get out? I played with a box of Chooz on my desk, rattled around the remaining two pieces, and then put it away.
    Louis was obviously not going to start this conversation, so I reached into my pocket and came out with Ralph’s photograph and notebook.
    “Ever see this man?” I asked, handing Louis the photograph.
    He reached over and took it. In the light from the window Louis looked young, very young. He held the photo in his right hand, a right hand that had kept him heavyweight champion for five years. He still looked like a kid sitting there.
    “I seen him,” Louis said. “Someone, don’t remember who exactly, introduced him to me when I was working out at a place called Reed’s Gym maybe a week back.” He handed the photograph to me and I looked at it. Ralph was smiling slightly with his nose and all his teeth and all his hair in place.
    “What did he