High Midnight tp-6

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  I did the only sane thing I could do. I put a chair in front of my door to keep out sudden visitors and sat down to a bowl of Post Toasties with milk and sugar. I kept looking at the body, hoping it would tell me something. I didn’t taste the cereal. Only then did I go through his pockets and find nothing. Someone had taken his wallet. I had the feeling the police would not accept this as a routine robbery.

  If I could have carried him, I might have lugged him to my car and dropped him in Barnsdall Park under an olive tree. I might get caught, but it would have been better than having the police find me here with my second body in as many days. It was then that the knock came at the door. I had been too busy trying to get some information out of the corpse by simply staring at him to hear the footsteps.

  “I’m sick,” I said. “Come back later.”

  “It’s the police, Peters,” came the unpleasant but familiar voice of Officer Cawelti.

  “My clothes are off,” I said.

  “Open the damn door,” he shouted, “or we’ll kick it in.”

  “You have a warrant?” I said, considering someplace to hide a big body in a small room.

  “I don’t need a warrant,” he yelled. “I have reason to believe a felony is in progress in there.”

  “You got a friendly phone call,” I said, walking to the door. He was already pushing at it when I removed the chair. Cawelti came skidding in, his gun out. An old cop in uniform was right behind him with his gun out.

  “Aha!” Cawelti grinned evilly, spotting the corpse.

  “Very good,” I said. “You spotted him right away. Excellent police work.”

  “Make jokes, you son of a bitch,” he said as he laughed with dancing eyes. “Now I’ve got you. You’re running a goddamn butcher shop and your brother isn’t going to get you out of this one.”

  “You want a confession?” I said. The uniformed cop had crossed over to the squat man to be sure he was dead. He nodded to Cawelti.

  “You want to confess?” Cawelti said, a bead of joyful sweat forming on his brow.

  “Come on, I didn’t kill him. Who do you think called you?”

  “A citizen doing his duty. Maybe your accomplice, who had a rush of guilty conscience. I don’t give a turkey’s toe,” gloated Cawelti, indicating with his gun that he wanted me to turn around. I turned around and I knew he was pulling out his handcuffs.

  “Hands behind your back,” he said.

  The old cop was going through the corpse’s pockets. I knew Cawelti had to be looking at my wrists. I turned as fast as I could, chopping at his left arm in the hope that he had shifted the gun so he could put the cuffs on with his right hand. I was right. The gun sailed across the room and hit the old cop. I shoved Cawelti back, and he tumbled over my mattress on the floor.

  “Now hold it,” ordered the old cop, reaching for the gun he had put away, but I went for the door and was out with no shot behind me. I could hear them scrambling as I went down the stairs three at a time. Mrs. Plaut was on the porch, looking up at the sky.

  “Beautiful crisp night,” she said.

  “Beautiful,” I said, dashing down the stairs into it.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Peelers?” she shouted as I ran down the street I could hear Cawelti thunder onto the steps behind me.

  “Stop,” he shouted, which struck me as a stupid thing to say, but what choice did he have. I didn’t stop. I got to my car and pulled away just as Cawelti, his plastered hair hanging over his eyes, raised his gun and took a shot at me. The bullet hit the top of the Buick and raced into the early evening. He shouldn’t have been shooting at me on a residential street, but he didn’t care. For all I know, the next shot probably killed an innocent stroller. I went around the comer and headed for Melrose Avenue.

  I had to admire whoever was knocking off the hoodlums in Los Angeles. I didn’t think they were doing it as a civic duty, but they were managing quite a bit, including getting me in boiling oil over my not-too-tall head. They or he or she had also taken away my best suspect and reduced my culinary wares.

  Now the police were after me. A killer might still be after me. It was like Robert Donat in The 39 Steps. All I needed was Alfred Hitchcock behind me to tell me what to do. Without Hitchcock, all I could think of was to drive fast, drive far and think about it later. A nagging voice that may have been my old man’s was whispering somewhere, saying, “Call your brother.” I didn’t want to hear that voice. I preferred the other voice that said, “You have to find the killer now and prove your innocence.”

  Yep, that was the voice I would listen to, the Hitchcock voice; but the question was how was I going to do it. What I needed was a friend. I also needed a couple of tacos to settle my stomach. I stopped for the tacos, found a dime and made a phone call.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “No,” said Ann.

  “I’m in trouble,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “You’re always in trouble. You like to be in trouble.” She hung up. I knew she would. I drove to Burbank and parked a block away from the Big Bear Bar with my lights out. I slumped down. The street was clear. I got out and walked past with my collar up. I could hear Lola’s off-key sad voice inside, so I kept walking, went all the way around the block and got back in the car after I put a little mud on the plates. I could have used a cup of coffee or a good pillow or a new brain.

  Darkness had come. I curled out of sight, determined to keep an alert watch for Lola. Vigilance was my watchword. I fell asleep almost instantly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The cop was rapping at my car window with white knuckles, and the sunlight of morning crept around him. I had slept through the night and missed Lola’s exit. I rolled down my window.

  “What are you doing here, fella?” he said softly.

  I sat up, tried to force my eyes open wide and touched my chin, which bristled for a shave I couldn’t give it.

  “My wife,” I said, trying to find a sob. “I followed her and my best friend to that bar last night. I was waiting for them to come out. Must have fallen asleep.”

  “What were you planning to do when your wife and friend came out?” the cop said, examining the interior of the car.

  “Follow them,” I said. “Confront them. I don’tknow.” I looked up at the sun through my dingy windshield and squinted. A tear of pain formed in my right eye. I closed my eyes tightly so it would touch my lower lid. I looked at the cop without blinking.

  “You live in Burbank?” the cop said with a touch of sympathy.

  “No,” I said, “Pasadena.” It didn’t matter what I told him. If he looked at my identification carefully, I was in trouble. I beat him to it by pulling out my wallet and digging out one of the dozen business cards I had picked up in my travels. I handed him the card and he read it.

  “Well, Mr. Dubliclay,” he said, handing the card back, “I suggest you go back to Pasadena and have a nice quiet talk with your wife. She probably went straight back home last night.”

  Translated, this meant if you want to blow the head off your wife and best friend, get the hell out of Burbank to do it.

  “Thanks, officer,” I said, wondering if he would ever know how close he came to capturing public enemy number one.

  I drove to Lola’s apartment and made my way up the stairs without thinking about what I was going to tell her. No one answered my first knock. I tried again harder and Lola’s voice said, “Just a second.”

  In just a second the door flew open and I found myself looking at Marco, who was pointing his hefty pistol at my chest.

  “In,” he grunted, motioning me in with his free hand. I stepped in, and he moved behind me to kick the door shut.

  The room was small, hard and not inviting. The sofa and two chairs looked uncomfortable but durable, the way furnished-apartment furniture always looked. Sitting in one of the armchairs, Lola looked uncomfortable, too, but I couldn’t vouch for her durability. She was curled up in a ball, one arm hugging her knees, the other one holding h
er hair back to look at me. She was wearing pink two-piece pajamas that made her look like what she wasn’t, an innocent little girl. There was a fear in her eyes, too, that little girls only had when they woke up from nightmares.

  When Marco prodded me with his gun, and said, “Have a seat and …” I turned around with my elbow out to hit his gun hand. This time it didn’t work. He backed up a step and drove his gun into my back. I staggered and Lola whimpered. I went into the wall, trying to make it look as if the blow had taken everything out of me and the crack of the wall had reduced me to bubble gum. I suppose if I had had time to think about it, I would have realized that the charade wasn’t far from the actual feeling, but I told myself otherwise. Marco strode toward me, in command, hand cocked, ready to smash any disobedience that might be left in me. I kept my head down, watching with my eyes rolled up toward him. His blow wasn’t as cautious as it should have been. I stepped inside it and the gun and threw a left into his stomach. The gun dropped to the floor, and Marco fell back on his behind. I wasn’t sure how to attack a gorilla of a man who was sitting down on the floor. I couldn’t jump on him or sit next to him. I could punch him while he sat, which would have worked out just fine, but some stupid nagging morality from old Gary Cooper movies stopped me.

  My hesitation gave Marco a chance to recover. He went to his knees and dived at my legs. I started to back away, but he caught my left leg and I went over the sofa, landing at Lola’s feet.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got him now,” I told her and got to my feet to beat Marco to the gun. It turned out to be a tie. In the next fifteen or twenty seconds we managed to prove once and for all that furniture in furnished apartments is not as durable as it should be. We went at it with more enthusiasm than the Underwriter’s Laboratory could ever hope to get from a mere paid employee. I discovered that the leg of a walnut end table will not stop a charging thug. Marco, in turn, learned that a sofa pillow will not always hold up under the pressure needed to smother a detective. I was sure, as we thudded into the bookcase, that we would rate all the furniture very low for combat use.

  We might still have been at the battle if Marco hadn’t found himself at Lola’s feet, following one of my better efforts at using my head as a battering ram.

  “Don’t be apprehensive,” he told her and pushed his great body from the floor for another bruised charge at me.

  “Hold it,” I shouted, trying to catch my breath. I held out both hands to hold him. He hesitated. “Why did you tell her not to worry?”

  “I’m protecting her,” he said.

  “From who?” said I.

  “You,” he said.

  The fear in Lola’s eyes was clear now. She was afraid of me, not Marco. I think I laughed. I know I groped my way to what was left of a chair. Marco picked up his gun and stood over me.

  “What the hell made you think I wanted to hurt Lola?” I said.

  “Mr. Lombardi said you maybe killed Larry and another guy and maybe you was planning to eradicate everyone in the Cooper movie, get them off Cooper’s back.”

  “You thought I’d kill six or seven people just so Gary Cooper wouldn’t have to make a movie?” I laughed. “Who would kill for anything as-”

  “Lots of guys,” said Marco, trying to button his shirt but unable to find the button I had chewed off. “I know guys have iced four, five other guys for less than five bills.”

  “Right,” I said, thinking that Marco might be just such an icer. “But I told you I didn’t kill your brother-in-law, Larry? I didn’t even know his name and I don’t kill people.”

  “I didn’t like Larry much,” Marco said, “but he was family and-”

  “I know,” I stopped him. “What’s your wife going to say?”

  “So?” he said.

  “So Lombardi sent you to protect Lola from me?”

  “You got it,” he said, finally finding a button and a buttonhole, though they didn’t quite match.

  “Lola, you really thought …?” I smiled sadly, but it was clear that Lola really did think it was possible.

  “You ever stop to think that maybe Mr. Lombardi had another reason for sending you to guard Lola with this bull-fiddle story about me? Maybe he just wanted to keep you busy, take your mind off finding out who stitched Larry?”

  “Mr. Lombardi wasn’t culpable for Larry’s getting his,” Marco said, trying now to straighten his few strands of hair. We had broken the only mirror in the room, so he had to do it by feel. He managed to get two tufts up on the sides so that he looked like Porky the Devil. Then he pushed it back, but a crop of hair popped up in back, making him look like Tony Galento doing an imitation of Dagwood Bumstead. He was not a visually impressive mug, but he could throw a kidney punch with the best of them.

  “Think about it,” I said.

  Marco’s mind was not adapted to extended thought about much of anything. The idea of “thinking about it” seemed to cause him pain. He squinted to force the thought into action and gave it up.

  “You’re pulling a fast one,” he said warningly.

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “Lola, you have broken my heart. I thought we were music together.”

  “Off-key,” she said protectively. I couldn’t tell if she was knocked-out drunk or shaky sober.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not after you.”

  “Out,” Marco ordered.

  “No,” Lola said hesitating. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “You don’t initiate no orders,” Marco said in confusion. “I take my orders from Mr. Lombardi.”

  “This is my apartment,” Lola rallied. “At least what’s left of it after you two played cowboys and Indians. You want to protect me, do it in the hall or downstairs.”

  Marco was clearly confused. He couldn’t shoot the person he was supposed to protect. He could shoot me, but even he saw that it would get him nowhere. I wondered if he was still afraid of Los Angeles.

  “You still in love with California?” I asked.

  He snarled, plunked his gun in his holster and looked at Lola. “You’re making a singular mistake,” he said, pointing a hot dog finger at her.

  “That’s my song,” she sighed, finally letting her feet touch the floor. She looked tired. “Go tell Mr. Lombardi I appreciate his consideration. It’s a real change from the memorable nights he tried to take me apart.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Marco repeated, looking at me suspiciously.

  “Hey,” she said, standing on uncertain feet, “you’ve been a good fella. Don’t make me call the cops.”

  Marco shrugged and went for the door. He stopped to think of another argument, but none came so he went out and slammed the door behind him.

  “Well,” I said to Lola.

  She said, looking around the room, “Christ, this place is a mess.”

  “Sorry,” I said, rising and moving around to see if any Toby parts were broken or severely cut. My body told me that I had escaped with less than I would have falling down a high staircase.

  “I suppose I should pack up and move out before the landlord sees what happened and tries to make me pay.” She picked up a lamp. It was a ceramic thing with a base shaped like a dragon. The dragon was now in two pieces. Lola held the two pieces, tried to fit them together, her mind on another planet.

  I stepped forward and took the dragon halves from her, putting them down on the sofa. “Did you get any sleep?” I said, putting my arm around her.

  “No,” she answered quietly, chewing her upper lip. Her eyelids sagged, and her voice was even more raspy than it had been before. She still held the smell of scented alcohol, and her hair filled my senses as she leaned into me. I wanted to cradle her, to look at her and try to sort out what I felt, what I wanted to protect. She was too wise and too innocent at the same time.

  “I’ll put you to bed and sit out here while you get some rest,” I said, leading her to the only door in the room besides the one to the hall.

  “You don’t have to,” s
he said, leaning into me as we walked, avoiding battle flotsam.

  “I need a place to think,” I said, supporting her through the door.

  The bedroom was little more than a large closet. I eased her into the bed and onto the pillow. She kept her arm around my neck and looked into my eyes.

  “You are a homely creature,” she said, “but there’s something in those eyes.”

  “Murine,” I said.

  “Don’t wisecrack when the going gets serious,” she said, pulling me closer. “You’re a soft touch.”

  Maybe she was right. I gave her a friendly good morning kiss, expecting her to lie back and dream, but she turned the kiss into something serious, opened up and held on till I eased next to her.

  “Well?” she said, wavering between a confidence she once had with men and a quiver that said I might reject her for something she had become. What she didn’t know was that it was what she had become that brought me on the bed, not the tough girl that had started the whole thing.

  Lola was warm and soft and tired. She was a wave, a soft wet wave and I floated on and in her. She was almost asleep when I finished but she managed a smile before she closed her eyes. I got up, covered her with a blue blanket and put my clothes on. Lola’s snoring didn’t bother me. In fact, I liked it. It was ironic. Lola had dreams of being a movie fantasy, a white-toothed, platinum creature with the sun behind her and Wolfgang Korngold music welling from the screen. She wanted to be a perfect fake. She was much more satisfying as an imperfect woman.

  Since Lola was going to skip out on the apartment anyway, I didn’t think there would be anything wrong in my making a few phone calls. My first call was to my brother at the Wilshire station. They put me right through to him.

  “Toby, you asshole,” he said, almost crushing his teeth. “Where are you?”

  “Phil, let’s talk sense and talk fast. You having Seidman trace this call?”

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “You’re a cop,” I answered, trying to straighten up the room as I cradled the phone on my shoulder. “I didn’t kill that guy.”