Read Online Smart Moves by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online Page B

the recovery-from-choking routine. He overacted. I felt sorry for him. He had no future in the theater. Movies, maybe.
    “My God,” he gasped, staggering to the bed and flopping back. “My God, you’ve damaged my larnx.” Then something even worse struck him. He sat up, his mouth dropped open, and out came, “Then I’ll probably never see the film. No one will ever see Axes to the Axis .”
    “There probably wasn’t any film in the damn camera,” I said, walking to the bathroom and filling a spotless glass with tepid water. I let the truth sop in and came back with the water. He took it and drank and then gave me the glass. I put it down and waited for more light to dawn in his feeble brain.
    “Then you must be the police or the FBI or something,” he said.
    “I’m ‘or something,’” I told him. “I’m something that wants answers.”
    As it turned out, he was someone who was now quite willing to give me the answers I wanted. Ten minutes later I knew that he could take me to the loft where the film had supposedly been made, that he had a bone or something missing from his hip, which kept him from being drafted, and that he had a small role in an upcoming version of Othello , which was in rehearsal. He gave me rough descriptions of the camera operator and the sound man on Axes to the Axis and promised that he could identify them. In return I promised that Einstein wouldn’t give him the opportunity to play an extended engagement in prison. Albanese thought that was awfully good of me and agreed that when rehearsal was over at six I could meet him. He gave me the address and I let him go.
    I went back to my room and put in a call to Einstein. He answered the phone himself with a “Yes?” and I told him what I had discovered.
    “You believe this Albanese?” Einstein asked softly.
    “Yes,” I said and tried out the description of Povey on him.
    “Who knows?” the scientist said. “It sounds like so many people. Dreams, formulas, these I remember with clarity for decades. I can almost not erase them from my mind. They clutter, come back when I call for something else, but people I forget, faces I forget. They change too quickly. I’m sorry.”
    “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll keep on this.”
    “Without getting killed.”
    “Without getting killed,” I agreed. “The name of that neighbor of yours, the one across the street, where the FBI is staying. You know it?”
    “His name? No.”
    “I want to get the phone number over there. Is there any way …”
    “The number is Essex three-four-six-nine,” said Einstein immediately. “To me he was Essex three-four-six-nine. It was easier to remember than his name.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “Your cold sounds better.”
    “There is improvement,” he said, with a slight sniff.
    We hung up and I called Essex 3469 and on the fifth ring got Spade or Archer. I couldn’t tell which. The line was bad. “Yes,” he said.
    “This is Peters,” I said.
    “His name is Povey,” came the voice. “He’s not German, he’s Hungarian. If he wanted to kill you, he would have.”
    “First name Gurko,” I threw in.
    “Not bad,” he answered appreciatively. “You’ve been talking to the actor. We thought it would take you a couple of days to track him down.”
    The window was still broken and I had till midnight before Carmichael the house detective put up the NO TRESPASSING sign. I needed help.
    “It’s been nice chatting with you, Peters,” the voice crackled.
    “Hold it,” I shouted. “If you know about Albanese and Povey, why don’t you pull them in, lock Povey up? I could have been killed. Einstein could get killed.”
    “Maybe half a million people or more can get killed in this war,” he said gently. “We pull in one Povey and lose a network, a whole bunch of spies. We’ve got our eyes on him, nearsighted though they may now be. Look, I’ve got to get back to Archer for lunch. We’re watching Einstein for you. Go ahead and