To Catch a Spy Read Free Page A

B-movie star. I actually liked him. Anita was thin, blonde, and good-looking, particularly when she tried and wasn’t worn out from a day of dishing out burgers, Cokes, and coleslaw.
    I decided to reread the funnies and was just moving from “Brick Bradford” to “The Little King” when the phone call came through.
    “There’s a guy on the phone,” Violet said. “Says he has to talk to you. Didn’t give his name but did a rotten imitation of Cary Grant. Almost as bad as Dr. Minck’s.”
    I picked up the phone.
    “Toby Peters,” I said.
    “Cary Grant,” he said. “A former client of yours, Peter Lorre, told me you’d be the right person to handle a delicate job.”
    “Peter Lorre,” I said.
    “Yes, I did Arsenic and Old Lace with him about a year ago. He mentioned your name. I asked some questions and here I am.”
    “And you’re Cary Grant?”
    “Born Archibald Alexander Leach in Bristol, England. Became a U.S. citizen two years ago and am now officially Cary Grant and in need of some very confidential help from a reliable investigator.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Let’s meet.”
    “How about tomorrow?” he said. “My wife’s throwing a New Year’s party tonight. I think it would be better if I came to your office. I don’t want Barbara, my wife, knowing about this.”
    “Name the time,” I said.
    “How does eleven in the morning suit you?” he asked. “It will give us both plenty of time to sleep. I know I’ll need it. My wife’s parties go on most of the night.”
    “You have my address?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “My office is modest,” I said.
    “That sounds like what I need. See you tomorrow.”
    He hung up. That was how it started.

CHAPTER
    2
     
    I was alone in my office off of Shelly Minck’s dental chamber of mayhem. I had left the lights on and the doors open for Grant. There wasn’t much going on in the Farraday on New Year’s Day. I had taken the straining elevator up the five flights, listening to its echo below. The building lights weren’t on, but there was enough light coming through the skylights in the ceiling to cast impressive late morning shadows.
    The Farraday was, thanks to Jeremy Butler, always clean and smelling of Lysol, one of my favorite scents. The turn-of-the-century ironwork of the railings, stairwell, and painfully slow elevator created dark, intricate patterns that kaleidoscoped as I moved upward.
    Jeremy and his family lived in converted offices on the seventh floor of the Farraday. It wasn’t that they couldn’t afford more. Jeremy had property on both sides of the hills: two one-story courtyard apartments, a small office building in North Hollywood, and others he didn’t talk about much.
    I had pushed open the doors of the elevator, listening first to the creaking echo and then to my footsteps as I moved toward my office. I heard something and looked down over the railing.
    “Toby?” came a voice from below.
    “Jeremy?” I answered. Our voices echoed.
    Below me, Jeremy Butler came out of the shadows. He carried a familiar mop and bucket.
    Jeremy and his wife, Alice, had left Mrs. Plaut’s party early, just minutes after midnight. Jeremy had carried their sleeping two-year-old, Natasha, a cherubic kid with dark curly ringlets who looked nothing like either of her parents.
    “They got in,” Jeremy called.
    I knew who “they” were—the homeless, the wandering alcoholics, the people who cruised Main and Hoover occasionally asking for a handout, usually on their way to or from one of the small parks near downtown.
    “How bad?” I asked.
    “Not too bad,” Jeremy said.
    He was big enough and strong enough even at age of sixty-one to heave a dozen intruders into the New Year with one hand. But that wasn’t Jeremy.
    “We endure,” he said, looking around so that I saw the sun glinting off the top of his bald head. “Your client will be here soon?”
    I had told Jeremy the night before that I had a client coming and had asked him to