To Catch a Spy Read Free Page B

leave the front door open.
    “Soon,” I said.
    “After Alice and Natasha went to bed this morning, I wrote a new poem.”
    “I’d like to hear it,” I said.
    “I’ll be up in a few minutes,” he said before I could ask him to wait until Cary Grant had come and gone. But when the muse hit Jeremy, he wanted to share his creations with Alice and me. My knowledge and appreciation of poetry was slender, but I was a good audience. A significant part of my business was knowing how to be a good audience.
    I turned and went to the pebbled glass door on which was lettered in gold: “Sheldon Minck, D.D.S., S.V.U., L.U., Dentist.” In smaller letters below this was “Toby Peters, Confidential Investigations.” The “Confidential Investigations” had been Violet Gonsenelli’s idea.
    “Class,” she said. “Distinguishes you from the crowd.”
    I went into the small waiting-reception room, turned on the lights, and went into Shelly’s office. When I hit the switch there, I was greeted by a surprise. The room, tools, dental chair, and metal table were sparkling clean. There were no dirty dishes and discarded instruments of torment piled in the sink against the wall. The garbage can was empty, not a single two-day-old wad of bloody cotton.
    This should have been a warning. Instead I felt a tinge of relief. Cary Grant wouldn’t be walking into the Spanish Inquisitor’s dungeon.
    My office was open. I went to the window, raised it, then turned on the fan on my desk and sat. I didn’t bother to look at my father’s watch. I had a wind-up clock on my desk, but it had run down and I liked it better that way. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know the time. What I didn’t want was to listen to each second of time ticking away. I preferred to check other people’s clocks and watches.
    I knew it was about eleven o’clock. I had looked at the clock in the window of Vitterman’s jewelry store on Hoover after I had parked the Crosley.
    The New Year’s party had been less than riotous. My sister-in-law, Ruth, had been too sick to come. She had been getting worse over the last few months. So, my brother, Phil, hadn’t shown up. Shelly had come alone, still pining for his wife, Mildred, who had left him, taking everything that wasn’t welded to the floor. Actually, she had taken very little. Shelly had been booted out of their house. In his place there was a gaffer from RKO. The gaffer was big, brawny, and ugly. Mildred was no prize in looks or personality either. Yet Shelly still longed for her and the bad old days. Shelly had gotten mildly drunk on Mrs. Plaut’s special brew of unidentified alcohol-and-fruit punch.
    Gunther had drunk one cup of the brew and eaten one of Mrs. P’s famous Zanzibar cookies made with coffee, flour, sugar, and whatever nuts or pieces of fruit might be handy. Niece Emma Simcox and tenant Ben Bidwell were there. Bidwell and Emma had danced to Mrs. Plaut’s records of Gene Austin, Russ Colombo, and Bing Crosby. Surprisingly, for a man with only one arm, Bidwell was a damn good dancer, inventive.
    Anita and I had sat together, talking about high school, past spouses, her daughter, the war, and which movie we were going to see on Thursday, her day off. The choice was hers. She said she wanted to see Thank Your Lucky Stars, the war-effort musical with Humphrey Bogart, Eddie Cantor, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia deHavilland, Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, and John Garfield. I told her Davis and Flynn had both been clients of mine. She was impressed.
    “You look a lot like John Garfield,” she said, “except for the nose.” Meaning Garfield had one and mine had been smashed pug flat.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    We danced. A few years ago I had been given a few lessons by Fred Astaire, and, while I still wouldn’t make it to the back-up chorus, I now knew how to find the beat and look respectable on the floor. Anita had a good time.
    At ten minutes to midnight, Juanita had risen, clapped her hands,