High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (19 page)

“Who is it?” Cooper asked.

“Damned if I know,” I said, slouching after Gelhorn.

“Always carry a lantern in the dark,” Hemingway called cryptically.

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? I asked myself without looking around as I stumbled into the darkness. At this point my clothes were so tattered that I must have looked like Rip Van Winkle, but I was unbowed. I could have stayed and tried to get some information out of Fargo, but he was more interested in his own pain than conversation, and it was likely he didn’t know what I needed to find out.

I was weary, but Gelhorn was lost. Now I was lost, too, but I wasn’t frightened and he was. A frightened man will make mistakes that can cost him his life. I lumbered after Gelhorn and in about five minutes heard him breathing hard ahead of me. Darkness had just about taken over, and I could have used a real flashlight instead of Hemingway’s pithy metaphor.

“Be careful of the snakes,” I called out. “Rattlesnakes.”

“Snakes?” screeched Gelhorn and fired a shot in what he must have thought was the general direction of my voice. I plunged on, knowing that he was moving more cautiously now, watching the ground, which is probably what I should have been doing.

I almost tripped over Gelhorn when I found him leaning back against a tree, panting and looking downward, with his gun searching out rattlers in the dark. His curly hair was dangling in his eyes, and he seemed terrified.

“Give me the rifle,” I said, leveling my pistol at him.

“Get me out of here,” he pleaded, handing me the weapon. I took it and waved for him to follow me. I don’t know what made him think I was any better at saving us from snakes than he was, but I figured I was no worse.

“First,” I said, “you tell me everything about the
High Midnight
project.”

“He’d kill me,” said Gelhorn.

“I suppose that’s possible,” I agreed. “I’m not sure what I’d do in your place. Remember there’s a lunatic behind us with an ax, and we’re in a woods full of rattlesnakes. I’d say you have a more immediate problem than Lombardi. You’re headed for a nice safe jail cell.”

I couldn’t see Gelhorn’s face, but I could hear him trying to catch his breath. “Lombardi,” he said. “Told me his part in it had to be kept quiet. He had two conditions. I had to get Cooper, and Lola Fanner had to be in the picture. It seemed like such a great idea. It was my chance. I took some of his money and developed the script, started seeing people, worked on publicity …”

“You spent a pile of Lombardi’s money, and you found that you couldn’t deliver Cooper and you couldn’t give back the cash,” I said.

Gelhorn brushed a bush of hair from his face and agreed.

“What else?” I urged him on.

“They told him to drop the idea,” said Gelhorn.

“They?” I said, trying to locate Gelhorn’s face.

“The mob, the mafia, whatever it is,” squealed Gelhorn. “They didn’t want the movie made, didn’t want the publicity. They wanted Lombardi to keep a low profile. That was one of the conditions of letting him semi-retire to Los Angeles.”

An animal moved in the trees nearby, and Gelhorn sobbed.

“Then why did he …”

“He told them it would be all right. I heard him on the phone. He told them not to worry, that he would keep his name out of it, that they should trust him.”

“He wants to make movies and corned beef,” I said.

“That’s about it,” said Gelhorn. “Now will you get me out of here?”

“Who killed Larry the Hood?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Tillman?”

“Tillman?”

“The guy who was hired to pressure Cooper, to blackmail Cooper, threaten Cooper into making
High Midnight
,” I explained, trying to ignore the animal sounds that were scaring me almost as much as they were Gelhorn.

“I hired him, but I didn’t kill him.”

I grabbed Gelhorn’s arm and started to walk him in a direction I thought would get us out of the woods. I believed him, and that left me nowhere. When we got out of the real woods twenty minutes later, I was still in the woods about the two murders. We groped our way to my car and got in.

“My car’s over there somewhere,” Gelhorn said.

I threw his rifle in the back seat and told him he could send for it or pick it up when he got out of jail for attempted murder. Maybe pigs would wedge open the door and live in the car. Maybe birds would nest in it and rattlesnakes wend their way through the exhaust system. I didn’t much care.

I put the Buick in gear, got stuck backing out, tried again and finally got the car turned around. We made it to the main road in twenty minutes, and I turned toward Los Angeles.

“I’ve never had a break,” whimpered Gelhorn, pushing his bush of hair from his face. I glanced at him and saw that his cheek was splotched with dirt. He looked like a sulking kid whose mother wouldn’t give him a dime for the Saturday matinee all the kids were going to.

“You don’t just have breaks,” I said. “You make them. Some people can make them. Others spend their lives sitting around waiting for them.”

We didn’t stop to sleep, though I did go to an all-night diner where they thought Gelhorn and I were escaped lunatics. We both looked it. I got down two egg sandwiches with mayonnaise in six bites. Gelhorn had a chocolate donut and a cup of coffee. He ate only half the donut. I ate the rest.

From that point on we said nothing. I didn’t listen to the radio, and I didn’t hum, whistle or sing. I tried to think, but I was down on my list of suspects. Lombardi was the logical choice at this point … or maybe Lola … or Bowie or—who the hell knew?

It was a little after three in the morning on Saturday when we pulled up to the Wilshire District Station and got out.

“Holy crap,” bellowed the old desk sergeant, “what have you been wrestling, mountain lions?”

I didn’t answer but pushed Gelhorn ahead of me toward the stairs. The old desk sergeant shouted at us to stop, but I kept on pushing, and Gelhorn stumbled forward up the stairs. The squad room was almost empty. The cleaning lady from a few days earlier was at it again, or still at it. She looked at us as if we were more garbage she had to take care of.

At his desk in the corner, Seidman was asleep with his feet up. I prodded Gelhorn toward him as the desk sergeant came running in, gun in hand.

“Hey you,” he yelled, waking Seidman.

“I didn’t think you ever slept,” I said.

Seidman’s eyes cleared immediately, and he put his legs on the floor as he waved for the desk sergeant to be quiet. “It’s all right, Bert,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

Bert the desk sergeant put his gun away and went out, muttering and complaining about the lack of respect of the public for the police, though I could see no connection between the subject and what had happened.

“You’re under arrest,” Seidman said to me, rubbing his mouth and searching his drawers. He found what he was looking for: a toothbrush and a bottle of Teel tooth liquid.

“I’ve got answers coming,” I said. “Soon.”

Gelhorn found a desk and sat against it with his eyes down.

“When?” said Seidman quietly.

“Tomorrow; no later. Then I’ll come in whether I’ve got something or not. You want me to promise on my mother’s honor?”

Seidman smiled a terrible gaunt smile. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“Name is Gelhorn, a movie director. He and an actor named Mickey Fargo just tried to kill Gary Cooper. Cooper is bringing Fargo in. I think,” I said in a whisper, “you might want to ask them some questions about a hood named Lombardi.”

Seidman was writing notes without haste.

“Cooper’ll press charges against him and the other guy?” asked Seidman, getting up. His voice was down too to keep Gelhorn from hearing.

“I don’t know. He’ll probably bring Fargo in, but I don’t know if he’ll go for charges. Gelhorn and Fargo aren’t going to try it again, not when you and the police department know about them. Besides, they were so bad at it that I’m not sure what they did would constitute a serious attempt. They’re the ones who almost got killed.”

“Tomorrow?” asked Seidman.

“Cross my heart and spit three times,” I said.

“There’s a coat on the rack near the door left by an unknown client,” said Seidman. “Why don’t you take it and disappear? I’ll wait till morning to tell Phil.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You can get the gas chamber in this state for attempted murder,” I said to Gelhom as I passed him. “I’d tell them what they want to know about Lombardi.”

The desk sergeant looked over at me as I came down the stairs in the coat several sizes too large for me. It did cover my ragged clothes. His face indicated a clear distaste for me and the direction of crime I probably represented.

I went home and to my room, checking to be sure that no prowl car was hovering in wait. And then I slept and it was the sleep of the just—deep, weary and undisturbed by dreams. My morning task would be simple: Find, confront and accuse Lombardi. If that didn’t work, I could throw myself on the mercy of my brother and the district attorney, neither of whom was known to be particularly merciful.

Both the sun and Mrs. Plaut were in my room when I woke up. The sun was full of energy and pride, having broken through a week of stubborn, cold clouds. Mrs. Plaut’s energy was no less determined. She stood on a wooden chair and was either adjusting or removing the portrait of Abraham Lincoln from my wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked. Fortunately she didn’t hear me. As it was, she nearly toppled from the chair.

“What are you doing?” I shouted when she made it safely to the floor, portrait in hand. She heard that and turned to me with her lips in a straight, resolute line.

“I am removing the portrait of Uncle Ripley,” she said. “I am also removing the bedspread and the doilies from the sofa. These are precious items for me, and it is not safe for them in this room, especially if you plan to continue to stab people and do who knows what else.”

She scooped up the doilies and the bedspread. I was happy to see them go.

“And another thing,” she said, marching to the door. “You will have to buy your own knives. Mr. Gunder,” she said, using the name she had settled on for Gunther, “explained to me about those men being spies and you being a government exterminator. Frankly, as you know, I have always been a Republican.”

With that statement of purpose Mrs. Plaut left the room with her recovered treasures, and I stood up to trudge to the bathroom, which was unoccupied, examine my scratches, take a shower and shave.

When I got back to my room, I made some five-minute Cream of Wheat and sat eating it with milk in the same chair recently occupied by two burly corpses.

I was pouring my second bowl when a knock came at the door. If it was the cops, I had nowhere to go in my underwear so I simply said “Come in” and went on eating. It was Gunther. The temperature was going up slowly, but Gunther was a cautious type. He entered wearing a suit, tie and vest, which probably meant he was going nowhere but had dressed for work.

“Toby, you are all right?” he said with real concern, eyeing the contusions.

“I’m fine, Gunther, just some scratches from a romp in the woods,” I said and offered him some Cream of Wheat. He said it was after noon and he had already eaten lunch.

“I spent much of yesterday watching the man Bowie, whom I followed surreptitiously from the boxing arena,” said Gunther. “He went to his home and remained there. I returned here last night.”

“Thanks, Gunther,” I said, tilting the bowl to get the last of the Cream of Wheat. “Anything else new?”

I got up and went to my closet. The remaining urban combat dress was sparse. I put on a pair of dingy dark trousers, a relatively clean white shirt I had been saving for an emergency, my shoulder holster and gun, a dark tie and a jacket I’d had since before my marriage to Ann. The jacket always made me think about Ann. She never wanted me to wear it, thought it was too long, out of style and ugly. It had been ripped up the back and sewn with the wrong color thread, which any human with reasonable interest could see.

“There is something else you should be informed of, Toby,” added Gunther, sitting in the single soft chair. “Two policemen were here much of yesterday, according to the other residents. Mrs. Plaut welcomed them but seemed to have driven them to despair. They departed but said they would return this day.”

“Thanks, Gunther,” I said, adjusting my tie and turning around. “How do I look?”

Gunther was a good friend. He lied. “Quite passable,” he smiled. “Another pair of pants might …”

“All I’ve got,” I said.

“Quite passable,” Gunther repeated.

Below us the doorbell rang.

“Maybe the two police officers,” said Gunther, rising and hurrying to the door to open it. I stepped after him quickly.

The ringing went on, and that was followed by pounding at the door. The residents of Mrs. Plaut’s knew better than to try to break through the sound barrier to her. We simply used our keys or gave up if the door was locked, which it seldom was.

“Anybody in there?” came a voice from below.