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

be going up.
    M. L. Auto was on Sherman Way just off of Laurel Canyon Drive. It was big and bright with lots of windows and three rows of used cars in the outside lot. The lot and the showroom didn’t seem to be overrun with customers. Two guys who looked like salesmen looked at me when I came through the front door. Then they glanced at each other to see who would get me. Neither seemed eager for the possible sale. Finally, the shorter of the two put his left hand in the pocket of his nicely pressed trousers, touched his bow tie, and ambled toward me past a shiny ’38 Oldsmobile. He wasn’t young and he wasn’t full of car salesman energy. His black hair was brushed back and he had nice heavy bags under his eyes.
    “Hi,” he said, holding his hand out.
    “Hi,” I returned, shaking his hand.
    “My name is Jerry,” he went on. “We’ve got nothing new. Won’t be anything new till the war ends, but we have some good-as-new pre-war models, fully reconditioned, real rubber tires.”
    “I’m here to see Mr. Lipparini,” I said. “I’ve got an appointment and I’m late.”
    Jerry hadn’t been smiling, and he not-smiled even more and took his hand out of his pocket with a bit of respect. “Up the stairs, first door,” he said, pointing to a carpeted flight of wooden stairs against the wall. He returned to his fellow salesman in the corner.
    I found the door at the top of the stairs, knocked, and a woman’s voice told me to come in. The office was carpeted, with wood-paneled walls, pictures of cars, cozy. The blonde behind the desk looked cozy and warm, too. She was about twenty, had on a businesslike green dress and a nice smile, showing white teeth. Leaning against the wall behind her was my old friend Moe. He had changed suits but not dispositions. His arms were folded, but his eyes were aimed at me, which wasn’t too bad. It was the little smile I didn’t like.
    “Mr. Peters?” the blonde said.
    “He’s Peters,” Moe confirmed. She looked at Moe and then back at me, still smiling.
    “Mr. Lipparini has been expecting you,” she went on. “Just knock and go right in.”
    I knocked and went right in.
    Lipparini was seated behind a big black desk. No trouble recognizing him. I knew him from his pictures in the papers. The happy grin under a small nose. The thinning hair combed sideways to make it look like more, but instead making him look like a man who was trying to fool himself. He was about sixty and in reasonably good shape. His gray eyes looked like they belonged in a different face, or else the real Monty Lipparini was wearing a mask and only his real eyes were visible. I didn’t want that mask to come off. I had the feeling that people who saw the real face turned to stone or worse.
    “Peters,” he said, shaking his head. “Hell of a world. Hell of a world.”
    “Hell of a world, Mr. Lipparini,” I agreed, though it didn’t look like such a bad world for him. I tried to ignore Curly and Larry standing to the right of the desk. Larry’s scar looked fleshy and his face puffy, like a little kid who’s just been caught going through the pockets in the coat room.
    “I just heard on the radio the Japs bombed some place called Dutch Harbor in Alaska. Nineteen planes. That’s the first raid on the United States.” He looked genuinely concerned, at least his face did. His eyes were watching me.
    “Pearl Harbor,” I said.
    “Right,” he agreed, standing up and plunging his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a shirt and tie but no jacket. His sleeves were rolled up and ready for work. His arms were dark and hairy. “I mean the first attack on the coast, the continent, America, not some island a million miles away. They hit Alaska and then they hit Seattle or Frisco or Los Angeles. You know what would happen? You remember what happened in February?”
    He looked at me and I nodded. The air-raid sirens had gone off about two o’clock in the morning. I had rolled out of bed to check the