High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (9 page)

Since it took a millennium for the bathtub to dribble to half-capacity, I was well into the script by the time I turned off the water. A bird chirped outside, and I decided
High Midnight
wasn’t so bad. I finished it forty minutes later and ran some more hot water for an extra shave.

High Midnight
was about a middle-aged former sheriff who shoots his wife and her lover and then holes up on a hill at the far end of town with his dog. Angered because no one told him what was going on behind his back, the former sheriff keeps the town pinned down. The easygoing present sheriff tries everything he can think of to get the old sheriff down. He sends an Indian killer, mounts a charge and when the town begins to talk about getting rid of him, the new sheriff offers to meet the old sheriff in a shoot-out, though the old sheriff is a former gunfighter and the present one an inexperienced novice. Before the shoot-out takes place, the old sheriff accuses the new one of having been one of those his wife had taken up with. The new sheriff says yes, but adds that he was just one of many. In the shoot-out the old sheriff, who has been suffering from a wound from one of the attacks on him, misses and is killed though he wounds the new sheriff, who in a final speech says the old boy was wrong but he stuck by his principles. The new sheriff then throws down his badge because the town has not supported him and rides wounded out of town.

I wasn’t sure whether Cooper was going to be the old or the new sheriff. It was a cinch Tall Mickey Fargo would be a joke in either role, and the only thing for Lola was the part of the wife, who gets killed at the beginning of the picture but who appears in some flashbacks.

Withered and dry, I went to my room, pulled the mattress from my bed, lay on my back and fell asleep. I dreamed, as I frequently do, of Cincinnati, where I have never been. Nothing much ever happens to me in Cincinnati. I wander empty neighborhoods and feel lonely. Gradually I feel scared and wonder where the people are. Then a crane with a demolition ball comes down the street, and I hide in an empty building. It isn’t a pleasant dream. My pleasant dreams are about Koko the Clown, but Koko won’t come when bidden. He reserves his dream appearance for times of crisis.

When I woke up, the room was dark. I sat up, staggered to the lamp, turned it on and checked my watch. The hour hand hung limp. The minute hand said it was fifteen minutes to something. My Beech-nut clock said nine-fifty and my Arvin radio picked up the tail end of Bob Burns on KNX, so I knew it was almost ten. Putting on my suit and a clean but frayed shirt with a tie which my nephews had given me for my birthday, I sneaked down the stairs, trying to avoid Mrs. Plaut. I failed. She caught me at the door.

“Mr. Peelers, Mr. Peelers,” she cried, hurrying to me with short little steps and her hands up. “You had a call. Carole Lombard called and said to tell you to remember to tell Cary Grant to be reasonable.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Plaut,” I said.

“I will,” she said with a smile, turning back into her parlor.

My decoding of the message was that Lombardi had called or had someone call to remind me to be sure Cooper agreed to make the picture. He was certainly determined.

It was almost eleven when I parked in front of the Big Bear Bar in Burbank. The street was quiet. A few lights were on in the nearby houses, and the lawns were creaking with crickets. Three cars were parked in front of or near the bar, and I thought I recognized one of them. When I got to the door, I could hear Lola Farmer belting “Rosie the Riveter.” She should have stuck to ballads. I waited till she was finished before stepping in.

There was a bartender with the face of an orangutan serving a customer with the body of a chimp. At one of the tables a couple sat arguing in low voices. At another table sat someone I wasn’t looking for, the squat man with the high voice who had laid me out in front of Mrs. Plaut’s. At the table next to him sat the person I wanted, Shelly Minck. His back was to me, but I couldn’t mistake that shape, that bald head and the cigar smoke. Lola was clinking the keys to think up another song. She looked about the same as she had in the afternoon, which was fine with me.

“Requests?” she asked.

“
The Man I Love
,” I said, and she looked up and gave me a smile of agony.

Shelly turned as quickly as he could at hearing my voice. He started to rise, but I got to him before he could get up and put my hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not polite to leave when the lady starts a song,” I whispered.

“I can explain,” he said.

I winked at the squat man, who drank his beer and pretended not to see me.

“After the song,” I told Shelly.

Lola did a reasonable job, considering the state of the piano and the limits of her voice. There was something so damned sad about her singing that I was beginning to like it.

I applauded and so did Shelly and the chimp at the bar. The arguing couple was too busy and the squat muscleman was still pretending not to be there. I waved to him to catch his attention, which caused him to rise, pay his bill and leave. His place was taken by the two men who had come through the door, Costello and Marco, both looking as if they could use the sleep I had taken.

“Talk, Shelly,” I said, before Lola could start another song.

“It’s like this …” he began, but I had had enough.

“No, on second thought don’t talk. Just pay for your drink and get out, and stay out of this case.”

“But …”

“Out,” I shouted. Everyone looked at us, and I raised my hand to show it was just a friendly discussion between friends.

“I could help you, Toby,” whined Shelly, pushing his glasses back from a nose that looked as if it had been immersed in mineral oil. I reached for his jacket, and he held up his right hand.

“All right, all right. I know when I’m not wanted.”

“No you don’t, Shel. That’s the problem.”

He got up, paid his bill and went out the door. Marco and Costello had a discussion, probably considering if one of them should follow Shelly to see who he was and what I had to do with him. Marco got up and ambled out.

Lola played, sang and drank for about fifteen more minutes till the couple in battle got up and paid their bill. Then she took a break and came over to my table.

“Nice,” I said.

“A few centuries ago I remember promising you a drink,” she said, looking at me. “Jimmy,” she called, and then to me, “What’ll you have?”

I drank a beer when it came and looked at her with sympathy and more.

“The drink is all I promised,” she said hoarsely.

“The drink is all you promised,” I agreed, looking over at Costello, who was nursing a second beer.

“I’m going to be lucky to make it back to my place and into bed alone. It’s been a tough day.” She finished her drink and looked into the bottom of the glass.

“I understand,” I said. “You need a ride?”

“Just a ride,” she said, looking at me. From a distance she had looked all right, but close up I could see that dancing of the eyeballs that shows someone who might have trouble navigating the length of a napkin.

“Gotta get back to work,” she said, standing, steadying herself and making it back to the piano. She ran a handful of fingers through her hair, coughed and began to sing. The monkey at the bar left in about ten minutes. That left just Costello, me and the barkeep. Lola wrapped up a medley of Cole Porter without losing too many words, and I clapped. I gave Costello a dirty look, and he joined in clapping. Jimmy the bartender was already cleaning up for the night.

“You need anything?” I asked Lola at the piano.

“A steady arm and a new head,” she said and smiled, reaching under the piano for a small purse.

She said good night to the bartender, and I put my arm around her to give her support to the door. I nodded to Costello that it was time to go. He caught me at the door and grabbed my arm.

“I gotta wait for Marco. He took the car.”

“I’m not staying to keep you company.” I told him and went out into the Burbank night with Lola. Somewhere a dog barked. The street was dark and quiet, and so was Lola.

She almost fell asleep on the way to the Glendale address she gave me. I knew the way. I grew up in Glendale. At least I got older in Glendale.

Her furnished apartment was in a new war boom building on the commercial strip. Some people were sitting outside swapping songs, lies and stories, waiting for the factory shifts to change or unwinding after a long day. I got Lola through the hall with writing on the walls. There was no carpeting and no attempt to cover the cement blocks which the building was made of. Our footsteps bounced around, and the few words I said were lost in echoes.

At her door she found her key and turned to me.

“I wouldn’t be much good,” she said with a sad smile.

“Some other time,” I said wittily.

She touched my cheek and kissed me, her mouth soft and tired and tasting of sweet bourbon and lost dreams. I lost myself in the kiss, and then she pulled away.

“Like a teenage date,” she said, and then she disappeared through the door, closing it behind her.

I felt sorry for myself. Someone was trying to kill me, but that wasn’t what was making me sad. Ann was getting married. Carmen worked late and fought me off and Lola Farmer was too drunk and sad.

Heliotrope was quiet. Lights were out on the street, and Mrs. Plaut had long since tucked away her manuscript. I parked behind a Packard right in front of the house. It looked like Marco and Costello’s Packard. I checked the license plate and it sounded right. Marco wasn’t in the car.

No one stirred as I went into the house and up the stairs to my room. I went in quietly and turned on my lights. Costello was sitting at my table, looking up at me with his eyes wide and his mouth open.

“Okay,” I started to say wearily and then stopped. Something red trickled from Costello’s mouth.

When I reached him, I could see the glassy look of pain and surprise in his eyes. One reason for it was the knife in his back. It was a long knife. Now you might wonder how I would know it was a long knife if it was imbedded in the back of my uninvited guest. It was my knife, one of the two kitchen knives that had come with the room.

“Who did it?” I asked, kneeling next to Costello, who grasped my arm with the grip of death.

“He …” gasped Costello.

“Who?”

“Yes … He … No … Yes,” he whispered.

“Yes, no, yes?” I repeated.

“He … No … Yes,” agreed Costello.

With that enlightening exchange, my guest fell over on his face, just missing a spot of milk I had failed to clean up from breakfast. He was dead. I knew what I had to do. Costello was short, but too heavy to haul away, and I didn’t want to be caught trying. I could just let him sit there till morning and then call the police, but I didn’t think I’d get much sleep, and besides it would just be putting off the inevitable.

I went to the hall phone and called the Wilshire Police District Office. It wasn’t quite in this area, but that’s where my brother Phil was in charge of homicide.

Phil wasn’t at the station: The sergeant on the desk said he’d give me Officer Cawelti. I said no thanks. Cawelti and I were not sleep-over friends.

I called Phil at home. His wife Ruth answered sleepily.

“Ruth, this is Toby. Did I wake you?”

“No, what time is it? The baby’s up with something. What’s wrong, Toby?”

Before I could say more I could hear a grunt and the bouncing of springs. Behind that was the cry of my niece Lucy.

“Toby,” came Phil’s voice, wavering between concern and anger, “what do you want?”

“I’ve got something for the boys,” I said softly. “I picked up autographs of Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Mark Koenig and Bob Meusel this morning.”

“You’re drunk,” hissed Phil.

“I’ve also got something for you—your favorite—a corpse.”

“Where?” he said soberly.

“Here, in my room.”

“You did it?” asked Phil seriously.

“No, someone left him as a present.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

While I waited for Phil I went carefully through Costello’s pockets. They didn’t tell me much except that his last name was Santucci, that he was from Chicago and that he was married. He had forty bucks and a holster with a gun which hadn’t been fired. I thought over his nonsense comments and tried to make sense of them. I woke Gunther, who came in wearing a tiny gray bathrobe with a sash. Gunther avoided examining the corpse and told me that he had heard some noises in my room about an hour earlier, but that since I hadn’t answered when he knocked, he had assumed I was all right.

I told Gunther about my conversation a few minutes ago with the now-dead Costello, and Gunther listened seriously, touched his tiny chin and hurried to his room for a pencil and paper.

“I think I understand,” he said animatedly. “You asked him who killed him and he said …”

“He. No. Yes,” I finished, looking at Costello’s head.

“Okay,” I went on, wanting to make a Spam sandwich but thinking it might look bad if my brother came while I was munching over the corpse. “He was killed by He. Yes. No Yes.”