The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four) Read Free Page A

more?” he said when he finished and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “More food? Something to drink or read?”
    “How about another avocado sandwich to go?” I tried. He didn’t look angry or amused. We waited some more and I looked at my watch. It told me it was 12:45, which might be true or might be hours off.
    I turned on the radio without permission, tuned in KFI and listened to Vic and Sade . Uncle Fletcher and Sade spent the show talking about how they were going to have lunch together. When it was over, a buzzer on the desk jerked young Dean forward. He grabbed the phone, said “yes,” and hung up.
    “There’s a private airport in Burbank on …” Dean started.
    “I know where it is,” I cut in.
    “Good. You’re to go there immediately.”
    “What if I don’t go there immediately? What if I don’t like being treated like a vacuum-cleaner salesman?”
    “Sorry?” said Dean as if he hadn’t heard me.
    “What if I don’t feel like going to Burbank? What if I decide instead to invest 30 cents and see Citizen Kane at the Hawaiian instead, and maybe another 40 cents on a couple of tacos?”
    “It would probably cost me my job,” he said.
    “It doesn’t seem like much of a goddamn job to me, Dean,” I said, making for the door.
    “Mr. Dean, Walter Dean,” he corrected. “It pays well,” he said with a sign of life, “and you get to meet all kinds of strange people.”
    “Like Howard Hughes?”
    “Believe it or not, Mr. Peters, you and I have already had a longer conversation than any I have had with Mr. Hughes. I hope you enjoy Citizen Kane .”
    I looked at him and couldn’t tell if he meant it or the whole response was some kind of con to keep me in a good mood. If he was a fake, he was a good one.
    “Burbank?” I said.
    He nodded and I left, hurrying down the silent, carpeted corridors and out of the damn building as fast as I could. My footsteps didn’t even echo to keep me company. The building had no echo. And there were no people walking down the halls chatting and no people at the water coolers. There were no water coolers.
    I was already in love with Howard Hughes as I drove to Burbank in the rain listening to Young Widder Brown . I stopped at a drug store for a Coke after the radio told me, “A little minute for a big rest means more and better work.” It was sound advice, and though I was normally addicted to Pepsi, I proved my flexibility. I also bought a tube of Musterole salve to use on my back when I got home. If it was good enough for the Dionne Quintuplets, and the radio said it was, then it was good enough for Toby Peters. I tried to think of a scheme for getting Carmen, the widow cashier at Levy’s Grill, to invite me to her place for a Musterole treatment. I’d even invest 30 cents and take her with me to the Hawaiian. With more than 300 dollars in the bank and a potential millionaire client coming up, I could afford a few luxuries, maybe even a full tank of gas.
    The rain had turned to steady sheets of thin, sticky glue by the time I hit the airport. I parked in a small lot and ran for the nearest building. Two guys stopped me before I hit the safety of the tin overhang. Both were well dressed, unsmiling and dry. They were also big. At least one of them should have been ugly, but they weren’t. They looked like everyone’s image of the FBI.
    “I’m supposed to meet Hughes here,” I said, holding my hand over my head to keep a small patch of my scalp dry.
    They parted to let me by.
    “Thanks,” I said, dripping between them and through a white, wooden door. They followed me in, looking confident. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like meeting a potential client wearing a seersucker sponge.
    “You should have asked me for my name,” I said, looking around the small, empty office.
    One of the grey pair of movie doubles stepped forward and I turned, expecting trouble and maybe wanting it. The wait in Hughes’ office and the game in the rain had made me