Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

dropped it into my pay phone, and dialed the number.
    “M. L. Auto,” a woman’s voice chirped.
    “I’d like to talk to M. L.,” I said.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding as if it was the saddest duty she might have in a lifetime, “but there is no M. L. Would you like to speak to our sales or service manager?”
    “No,” I said, “I want the finance manager, the boss, Mr. Lipparini.”
    “Whom shall I say is calling?” she asked after a pause.
    “Toby Peters,” I said.
    “I don’t think he is in right now, Mr. Peters,” she said.
    “Tell him it’s the guy who danced with his stooges last night.”
    I played with the tip of a pencil, trying to scratch it into a point I could use while I waited. I didn’t have to wait long.
    “Peters?” The voice was deep, the name said languidly.
    “Right,” I said.
    “You’re dead,” he said.
    “You want to hear a corpse talk?” I answered.
    There was no sound on the other side, but the line stayed open. He didn’t hang up. So, I continued.
    “I’ve been through Ralph Howard’s papers,” I lied magnificently, “and I have evidence that you and he were involved in a deal to fix some fights, that you owned a piece of the fighters Howard supposedly owned on his own. I’m putting things together and I find the possibility that Howard made you unhappy, maybe he couldn’t fix the contracts, or set up an exhibition with Joe Louis, or pay back some money he owed you fast enough, or … It can go on. But suddenly the day before yesterday Howard meets two guys who look suspiciously like a pair of the walking radios you had at Reed’s last night. And Howard is now dead. It wouldn’t look good for you if people I know at the L.A. Times got this.”
    “You can’t …” he began.
    “Collect from a dead man,” we finished in unison, and I went on alone to say, “I know the line. Something happens to me and the envelope of Ralph Howard’s letters and business dealings with you gets mailed to the district attorney by a friend of mine.”
    “No one’s going to hurt you,” he said, taking forever to say it. “You upset Jerry a little last night. He’ll get over it.”
    “And?” I said, pleased that I was no longer a dead man.
    “And,” he went on, “I didn’t have Howard killed. He owed me, yes, he owed me. Maybe I juiced him a little, had someone chase him around in a car on a Saturday night, a nice new Pontiac maybe, but I didn’t have him killed. You know my motto.”
    “Engraved on my cheek,” I said. “Let’s talk.”
    “We’re talking,” he said. “But you talk about me paying you for those Howard papers and we stop talking. I don’t go in anybody’s pocket.”
    “No money,” I said, turning my chair around with a rusty squeal to look out the window. “Information. You think it’s possible a pair of your boys might have gotten overly enthusiastic about their job, accidentally did Ralph Howard in, and then decided not to take the responsibility?”
    “No,” he said simply, and then after a long pause: “They do what I say, no more, no less, or they have a long swim in the ocean.”
    “I’d like to talk to that trio from last night,” I said. “You name the place and I’ll be there.”
    I thought he had gone out for a hot dog. There was nothing on the line for a minute or two and then he said, “Here, half an hour. Come alone. I’ll give you ten minutes, and then I don’t want to hear from you or see you again ever.”
    “Half an hour,” I said and hung up.
    I was five minutes late. No-Neck Arnie had just been putting the finishing touches on my new gas gauge and I had to wait.
    “Putting one of those things in ain’t easy,” he said, wiping his hand and holding it out for payment.
    “It ain’t cheap either,” I answered, shelling out two tens and two singles.
    The gauge worked fine. Arnie had thrown in a full tank of gas and a warning about rationing, which led me to believe that the cost of running my car would