A Few Minutes Past Midnight (3 page)

This time I couldn’t. She helped me open the elevator door, her beads jangling, her dark long dress dangling. She played the role.

“I had a vision about Harold Stassen,” she said.

Stassen, the governor of Minnesota, was a serious contender for the next Republican nomination for president.

“Saw him, clear as I see you now,” she said. “In the living room of that mobile home he lives in. His wife was there, one of his kids. He was reading a newspaper. You know what the headline said?”

“No,” I answered.

“Stassen will never be president,” she said.

“You planning to relay this information to him?”

“Not my business. I’m going down for something to eat,” she said. “You want me to bring you something?”

I held the door open for her.

“A couple of tacos from Manny’s,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my wallet.

“On me,” she said. “I’m feeling generous. I just got a big tip from Al Kazinzas.”

“Fish Market Al?”

“That’s the one,” she said with a smile. “I told him he was going to die.”

“And he gave you a big tip?” I asked, stepping out of the elevator and letting the door close.

“I said he was going to die at the age of ninety-six in a gondola,” she said as the elevator started down. “He said he would stay away from gondolas. But, Toby, if you’re meant to go down in a gondola, there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said to her upturned face as she reached the fifth floor.

“Oh God,” she said, suddenly remembering something. “Had a vision about you.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Juanita,” I said.

“I’m buying you tacos. You can hear my vision. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You’ve got ten reasons,” she said. “They’re all wrong, but you’ve got to go through them. Like the trials of that Greek.”

“Kazinzas?”

“Hercules.”

“Hercules with a bad back.”

She was almost out of sight below me, but her voice came back.

“The truth will be at the grave.”

“Whose?” I called.

“
Ich veis
, who knows?” she said. “I just see this stuff. I don’t know what it means. Oh, one more thing. You’ll slip on a dead woman.”

“What woman? What name? Where?” I asked.

But she was gone.

The sign on the door to our outer office had been changed again. Shelly was forever changing it in the hope of impressing potential and already trapped patients.

This time it read, in gold letters, “Sheldon Minck, D.D.S., V.G.D., Sp.D.I.”

Below it in small black letters, a determined client who knew the room number might be able to make out, “Toby Peters, Private Investigator.”

When I opened the door a pained voice and a terrible twanging greeted me. My first impression was that it was another of Shelly’s victims.

“What are the new initials?” I asked Violet Gonsenelli, who sat behind a tiny desk in the tiny waiting and reception room that had room for only two chairs besides hers.

Violet was dark, young, pretty, and waiting for her husband, a very promising middleweight, to return from the war.

Violet was making a face. The squeal continued.

“The V.G.D. stands for Very Good Dentist. The Sp.D.I. means Specialist in Dental Inventions,” she said. “I got a letter.”

“Rocky?” I asked, reluctant to open the inner door and see who was in Shelly’s dental chair. Rocky was Angelo “Rocky” Gonsenelli, Violet’s husband. Violet and Rocky had married four days before Rocky shipped out.

“Yeah, I think he’s in the Pacific,” she said. “On the
Hornet.
The letter smells like salt water. He says he’s fine. Not much else. Says he gets to read the comics. Wash Tubbs is his favorite now. Captain Easy is in Germany helping the resistance.”

“I have confidence in Captain Easy and Wash,” I said, moving toward the inner door.

“Al Reasoner’s fighting Freddie Dawson in Chicago in a couple of days. I’ll give you four to one and take Dawson.”

I shook my head “no.” I had learned my lesson. Don’t bet against Violet when it comes to boxing, baseball, or basketball. You had a chance at her in football, but only a slim one.

When I opened the inner door, I was greeted by a sight that would have turned lesser or even greater men to grape juice. Sheldon Minck sat alone in the room in his own dental chair. Short, plump, bald, sweating, and hopelessly myopic, Shelly sat, his ever-present cigar in the corner of his mouth, an intense look on his face. He held a ukulele in his hand and was plucking at the strings and making a sound he mistook for music.

“What are you doing?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Learning to play the uke,” he said. “New idea. Music before drilling and filling. Soothe the patient. Calm my nerves. I’m a passable crooner. No Crosby, or Russ Colombo, Gene Austin, or Rudy Vallee, but not bad.”

That was one dentist’s prejudiced opinion.

“Can you hold it down for a while?” I asked. “I’ve got work to do.”

“I’ve got a patient due in a few minutes,” he said, getting out of the chair and placing his ukulele on the sink in the corner. “I’ve almost got ‘Hindustan’ down.”

Down and pleading for mercy, I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

“I’m working on a great idea,” he said before I could escape. “Articles in
The Journal of the American Dental Association, Oral Hygiene
, and
Dental Survey
say Fleers Double Bubble Chewing Gum is good for your teeth, massages the gums, strengthens the teeth.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Yeah, strong teeth with cavities from the sugar. But who am I to complain? You know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“So, I come up with a bubblegum with no sugar,” he said eagerly. “I sell the idea to Fleers.”

“And cut down the number of people who need fillings,” I said.

“But what the hell would I care. I’d have a big pile in the bank. I’m working on it. My mind is always working, Toby.”

He pointed to the place on his head where he assumed his mind was hidden.

I opened the door to my tiny office, went in, and closed the door behind my desk. Shelly was singing “Ain’t She Sweet?” I didn’t turn on the lights. The sun was coming in through my single window. I opened the window, turned on my recently purchased secondhand rotating desktop fan, and sat behind my desk.

There were two chairs on the other side of the desk next to the door. On one wall was a photograph of me, my brother Phil, my father in his grocer’s apron, and our German shepherd dog, Kaiser Wilhelm. I was about ten. Phil was about fourteen. My father had two more years to live after that picture was taken. My mother had died when I was born, which accounted in part for the permanent scowl on my brother’s face.

On the other wall was a large painting of a woman holding a baby in each arm. The woman looked lovingly at one of the babies. There was nothing strange or unusual about the painting and only a few people knew it had been a gift from Salvador Dalí. Two boys in the photo. Two in the painting. A mother in the painting. A father in the photograph. That was the first moment I had noticed the similarities and considered them and the differences.

I pushed my mail to the side after determining that none held the possibility of a check and all held the certainty of a bill. Then I took out my notebook and looked at the numbered items I had written in Chaplin’s living room.

The fan hummed. Someone entered Shelly’s office. He stopped singing. I could hear him talking now and humming, but I couldn’t make out the words.

The unopened mail glared at me. I opened the envelope on top. It was a bill from the telephone company. I put it back on the pile and began to copy my notes. In twenty minutes and an equal number of whimpers from Shelly’s patient, I determined that more than half the population of the United States probably didn’t care much for Charlie Chaplin. They loved the Tramp, but they hated the man behind him.

My suspects included all anti-Communists, Jews who thought Chaplin had abandoned his roots in a time of Nazi atrocities, Nazi sympathizers and anti-Semites who decided he was a Jew, along with at least eight young women whom he had seduced and abandoned, at least one writer convinced Chaplin had stolen from him, and a bunch of overly zealous Americans who were angry as hell that he hadn’t become a citizen. Not to mention Englishmen who thought he had abandoned his native soil, Westbrook Pegler, fans of Eugene O’Neill, and a very wet guy with a very long knife.

“Fiona Sullivan,” I said, tapping my dull pencil point on the name that the man at Chaplin’s door had spoken. He had given her name and told Chaplin to stay away from her. He had also told Chaplin to abandon his
Lady Killer
project. Why?

There was a knock at my door. I said, “Come in” and Jeremy Butler entered filling the doorway. He had abandoned his mop and Lysol for the visit.

“Edgar Lee Masters has pneumonia,” he said solemnly.

“First Fats Waller. Now Edgar Lee Masters,” I said.

“He’s not dead. You know
Spoon River Anthology
?” Jeremy asked sitting across from me.

“You read part of it to me,” I said. “Edgar Lee Masters has pneumonia. Sounds like the start of a good poem.”

“Perhaps,” said Jeremy, folding his hands in his lap. “You wanted to talk to me.”

I told him about my visit with Chaplin and showed him my list. He read it carefully.

“You’d like my help?”

“Can you spare a few days to keep an eye on Chaplin?” I asked.

“I’ll consult Alice. She’s a great Chaplin fan. As is most of the world.”

His wife Alice, formerly Alice Pallice, was always consulted when I asked for Jeremy’s help. She never said “no,” but she made it clear to me when she could that Jeremy was over sixty with a small child, not to mention a wife. If I ever got Jeremy hurt, I would have to face Alice, and Alice was a formidable figure to face. She was almost as big and strong as Jeremy and two decades younger. She was running a small pornography press in the Farraday when Jeremy had uncovered in her a passion for poetry. Most vivid in my memory was the image described to me by Jeremy of Alice picking up her printing press when the police came one Thursday afternoon. She had gone out the window and up the fire escape with the three hundred pounds of dead weight. Jeremy had covered for her and she had promised to marry him and abandon pornography for poetry. The two of them published Jeremy’s and other people’s poetry at a loss, which was covered by Jeremy’s real-estate holdings all over the city.

We went over the list I had made.

“Fiona Sullivan and the warning about making the movie about the killer are pursuable,” he said after a few minutes of consideration which including touching his ear. “But the rest is beyond the resources of an entire nation even in peacetime.”

“So …?”

“Search where you have light,” he said.

I agreed.

“Shall I go to Chaplin’s house if Alice agrees?” he asked.

“If you would,” I said.

“I’ve heard that he’s very knowledgeable about poetry.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.

“And you’ll look for Fiona Sullivan?” he asked.

“Maybe Gunther will be able to spare some time,” I said. “And if things get tough, I might ask Shelly.”

Jeremy showed neither approval nor disapproval. He rose.

“I’ll let you know in a few minutes,” he said as he opened the door and left.

Shelly was actually singing now. He was much better without the ukulele, but much better only put him in the same choir as a high-pitched Andy Devine.

I pulled open a deep drawer in my desk and pushed away broken pencils, rubber bands, paper clips, and a small two-year-old appointment book I had never used. The telephone book was in there. I put it on the desk in front of me and opened it, finding the listings for Sullivan.

It was a start. Fiona Sullivan could be anywhere, but the wet guy had appeared in front of Chaplin’s door in Bel Air and it made sense that if Chaplin was supposed to stay away from her, she would most likely be close enough so that the warning made sense. But then again, the guy might simply be nuts. He could have picked the name out of the air, a radio show, his own life, or a magazine article.

There were a lot of Sullivans in the Los Angeles telephone directory. Pages of Sullivans. There were three F. Sullivans but no Fionas. I reached for the phone and called the first F. Sullivans.

“My name is Martin Reilly,” I said to the woman who answered the phone, using my best Irish accent which, compared to my Italian, Greek, and all-purpose Eastern European, wasn’t too bad. “I’m lookin’ for a Fiona Sullivan. Might that by any chance be you?”

“My name’s Frances,” she said.

“That’s my misfortune,” I said sadly. “You wouldn’t be knowin’ a Fiona Sullivan, would you now?”

“No,” she said. “I gotta run.”

She hung up and I went through the next two F. Sullivans. The second was also a Francis, but this Francis was a man. He knew no Fionas. The third F. Sullivan didn’t answer. He, she, it, or they were probably at work. I’d try later but I had no great hope.

I looked at the long list in front of me and called the second-floor phone in Mrs. Plaut’s Boardinghouse where I had a room. My prayer was that Mrs. Plaut not answer. She was ancient, stick thin, and almost totally deaf.

My prayer was not answered but the phone was—by Mrs. Plaut.

“I’m here,” she said.

I took a deep breath. “Mrs. Plaut,” I shouted. “It’s me. Toby Peters.”

“Mr. Peelers is not here,” she said. “You can leave him a message.”

“No, I’m Mr. Peters,” I shouted louder, pointing at my chest as if she could see me over the telephone.

“Good. I’ve been looking for you this a.m.,” she said.

“I’ve been working.”

“Bugs?” she asked.

“No,” I said, though I should have said “yes.”

Mrs. Plaut was under the impression that I was an exterminator. I do not know where she got this impression. She may have mis-overheard a conversation or misheard a word. When she had an ant problem or a rat problem, she assumed I would take care of it. Somehow, Mrs. Plaut also thought that I was a book editor. The origins of this idea were rooted even deeper into Mrs. Plaut’s imagination than the bug theory. And she saw no contradiction or clash between what she saw as my two professions.