High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Which one?” he said wearily.

  “The second one, both of them,” I said, looking around for a wastebasket and spotting a small one in the corner.

  “I believe you,” Phil said. “Now, what do you want? I’m a cop, not God. I can’t say let’s just forget the whole thing and go out for chop suey.”

  “Who was the guy?” I asked, trying to stretch the phone far enough for me to reach the wastebasket. I couldn’t, so I tried pitching smaller pieces of garbage into it.

  I knew Phil would talk just to keep me on the line to trace the call. I also knew it would take at least five minutes for a trace, and Phil and I both knew that I wouldn’t be on long enough to allow that, but we had roles to play out.

  “His name was Tom Tillman—small-timer, couple of arrests for extortion, one suspicion of murder,” Phil said. “A local. You didn’t know any of this?”

  “No,” I said honestly, trying not to cut myself on slivers of mirror.

  “You think you might come in here and explain the whole thing to me,” he said slowly, “so we can get working on it? The longer you stay out there, the worse it looks for you.”

  “You mean if I come in with my hands up, you promise me a fair trial?”

  “Jerk,” he hissed.

  “And my old pal John Cawelti. You think he might get up a lynch party and rush the jail at night to string me up?”

  “This isn’t Tombstone,” Phil shouted, finally losing what little temper he had left.

  “Maybe it is,” I said over his heavy breathing.

  “Get your ass in here now,” he shouted. I could imagine his face going to a purple-red like my father’s used to do in his infrequent rages. It was a rage like that that finally made his heart say the hell with it. I always thought it was ironic that a gentle man like my father should lose his life in a moment of anger. Maybe anger needs practice. It couldn’t just come once in a while. If that was true, Phil would live long.

  “Phil …” I said, but he hung up. He had broken the rules. I considered calling him back. He had actually kept me on the phone for longer than I had planned, and I had almost forgotten the time. He wasn’t supposed to get angry and hang up. I was supposed to do it with a flourish.

  With a patient operator and a lot of time, I made seven phone calls.

  First, I reached Carmen at Levy’s and told her that I would pick her up at seven-thirty for the fights at the Hollywood Legion. I told her to come outside, where I’d pick her up. I didn’t think Phil knew about me and Carmen. Actually, there was nothing to know. If they wanted me badly enough, the police would eventually make the connection, but by the time they did that, I’d either have some answers or be wrapped up and ready for delivery to them.

  Then I called Lombardi, Mickey Fargo, Gelhorn and Bowie, accused the first three of killing Tom Tillman and Bowie of knowing more than he’d told me. I insisted that they meet me at the Hollywood Legion at staggered intervals of fifteen minutes, starting at eight. It was worth a shot. My last calls were to Jeremy Butler, Gunther Wherthman and Shelly Minck. I asked each to be at the Hollywood Legion, to stay out of sight and to watch for me. At a signal each was to step out and be a witness when I confronted the confessed killer. None had a gun, but I didn’t think a killer would start blasting away in a crowded stadium.

  There was no problem convincing Gunther. He simply said he would be there and asked no questions. Jeremy questioned the wisdom of the whole plan, reminding me of times in the past when my traps had turned into near-disasters for me.

  “I know what I’m doing, Jeremy,” I said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “you are trying to get yourself killed. I’ll be there.”

  Shelly was the toughest to convince. His excuses included: “Mildred wants me home to fix the oven”; “I have a sore toe”; and “My glasses are broken.” The thrill of playing detective had faded with the first corpse, but Shelly rose to the occasion and finally agreed when I threatened to turn him in to the dental society for malpractice.

  There was a lot of time, and Lola was snoring pleasantly in the next room. I cleaned up, found some Quaker Puffed Rice and coconut juice. There was no milk so I poured the coconut juice on the cereal. It tasted pretty good. I ate and read the few pages of Lola’s newspaper that hadn’t been chewed up by massive Marco and me. The Japanese had bombed an Australian naval base, someone had caught a four-ton shark and the Frankie Carbo jury was deadlocked. Carbo was on trial for the killing of Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg. More important than all of this was the fact that Sugar Ray Robinson had TKO’ed Maxie Berger in the second round of their fight in Madison Square Garden in New York. Somehow that reassured me that the world was still sane.

  With a few hours to go, I looked in on Lola, who snored away. I found a razor in her bathroom, shaved and washed up. I looked presentable if I kept my jacket buttoned to hide the torn shirt.

  I read a few pages of Lola’s copy of Saratoga Trunk, didn’t like it and turned on the radio. When Lola still wasn’t up at six-thirty, I kissed her forehead and went out.

  Carmen was as reliable as California rain. Al Pearce was just coming on when she stepped out of Levy’s, her coat drawn around her shoulders. She looked big and strong and sure, even after a day of work; the reverse of Lola Farmer. I pulled up and got out of the car, looking around for cops, robbers, cowboys or Indians. The sun was dropping toward San Pedro when I opened the car door for Carmen.

  “This will be a night to remember,” I said.

  “Oh, brother,” sighed Carmen and off we went.

  The Hollywood American Legion Stadium was as safe a place to meet a killer as possible. More than half a million people came there every year to see boxing and wrestling. Los Angeles fight fans knew that the best place to see movie stars is not on Hollywood Boulevard but in the first six rows of the stadium, which was one of the reasons Carmen got excited about going to the fights. She also had an honest respect for men who wanted to get rich by battering the other guys into submission or shame.

  Eastern states, including New York, don’t recognize championship fights held in California, where the state law limits all decision fights to ten rounds. But there is no lack of interest on the part of local fans. Henry Armstrong, ex-welterweight champ and former lightweight champ, lives in Los Angeles, but he never defended his title at home. Before 1915 boxing exhibitions up to twenty rounds were permitted in Los Angeles. I remember as a kid seeing a bloody one with Jack Johnson and a bald guy at Hazard’s Pavilion at Fifth and Olive with my old man. Jim Jeffries fought his first pro fight in the old Manitou Club on Main Street.

  Most of my own fights, including the one this afternoon, had come in or around Los Angeles, but no one had ever paid to see me punch and be punched. Maybe this would be the night when I got a chance to go one-on-one with a killer in the Hollywood Legion. Maybe the ghost of Jim Jeffries would be over my shoulder. Maybe I had the imagination of a ten-year-old and the brain of a flea. Then I found a free parking space on El Centro and waited in line with Carmen, who stayed close and looked around for celebrities. I plunked down a few bucks for tickets and we went in.

  The wonderful trap of Toby Peters was set. Nick Charles, eat your heart out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  There were waves of olive drab and dark blue in the crowd, and the place was packed. Soldiers and sailors swelled the stadium, though the nonuniformed spectators still outnumbered them. The war made boxing even more popular. Maybe it was the fact that a boxing match has a definite start and distinct end, and there’s a clear winner and loser. Violence, rules and no one gets killed. Boxing is war without the worst of war. I’d been at fights with servicemen before. There were two basic reactions. Before the fight they horsed around, spilled a little beer, argued about which was better—a fast-stepper or a slow, hard puncher. Then when the fight actually started, some of the boys went red-faced wild with every punch, their mouths open and moaning. Others sat back silent and serious, not knowing quite what it all meant
to them, but knowing it meant a lot.

  The crowd that night had the sound of fight crowds, a wave of sound pierced by an occasional loud, hysterical laugh or someone calling out to Maury or Al or Brian to bring back an extra hot dog or beer. Carmen craned her neck to see the ringside seats.

  “I think I see Ann Sheridan,” she said excitedly.

  “Ann Sheridan don’t come to no fights,” said a bulldog man sitting next to her, without looking up from his program.

  “I ought to know Ann Sheridan when I see her,” Carmen insisted to the guy, who looked up from his program ready to fight and got his first look at Carmen, who was wearing her tightest red dress.

  “Maybe Ann Sheridan changed her mind,” the bulldog said with a twisted smile.

  Carmen accepted his apology.

  “Babe Ruth is supposed to be here,” the bulldog said amiably.

  “Toby knows Babe Ruth, don’t you?” she said, taking my arm without stopping her survey of the crowd for celebrities.

  “Sure,” said the bulldog, eyeing me briefly and turning back to his program.

  The hour hand on my watch was anchored now. It must have happened in the fight with Marco, but a firm grip on a small gear didn’t mean a firm grip on time. I asked the bulldog what time it was, and a soldier on my left told me it was just before eight-thirty. A few minutes later the heavyweights in the first fight came down the aisle. The crowd cheered. The crowd booed. The crowd didn’t know either one of the saps or their records, but they were big, and big guys gave out the hope of big punches. Both fighters looked scared. Both fighters looked young. One, a white kid with his hair cut short, was called Army John McCoy. The reason for the “Army” was made clear neither by the ring announcer nor our programs. The soldier next to me said he thought he was a soldier. Someone else corrected him behind us and said he knew he was a soldier. I doubted it but didn’t care. The other fighter was a Negro kid with the biggest arms I’d ever seen and legs to match that might make him a little slow. His name wasn’t even on the card, but the ring announcer introduced him as Archie “Black Lightning” Davis.

  “I’ll put up ten on Black Lightning,” said the bulldog, looking around for a taker.

  The soldier on my left dug into his pocket, and others rose to the challenge.

  “Take the bet,” urged Carmen, as the fighters in the ring got their instructions.

  “The Army boy hasn’t got a chance,” I said. “The Negro’s a ringer. I’ll bet ten his name isn’t Archie Davis. Look at those arms, scar tissue over the eyes. He’s been around, and the other kid can’t even look him in the eye.”

  I tried to spot Babe Ruth but couldn’t. I sure as hell didn’t see anyone who looked like Ann Sheridan.

  For the first few minutes the two fighters received cheers for dancing. When McCoy decided that things weren’t going too badly, he made a flat-footed rush and landed a right to Davis’s head that Davis slipped. In return, Davis put a short hard left into McCoy’s kidney that the crowd and the referee missed. The crowd went wild. It looked to them like McCoy had drawn first blood. The bulldog man looked over at me with a mean smile, and I nodded that I had seen what he had seen.

  “Ten more says McCoy don’t go the four rounds,” the bulldog said.

  Money came his way. Carmen dug into her purse, and I stopped her.

  “He’s right,” I said.

  I didn’t have time to see the end of the fight. I told Carmen to enjoy herself, that I’d be back soon, and headed up the aisle before she could ask any questions. When I glanced back, the bulldog man was leaning in her direction, explaining the finer points of the fight game to her.

  In the corridor the sounds of the crowd seemed artificial, like someone had created them for a John Garfield boxing movie.

  The corridor wasn’t quite empty. A woman rushed for the women’s room. A guy at a hot-dog cart was counting his before-the-fights take. I spotted Gunther without any trouble. It is hard to miss a midget, especially when the midget is trying to look inconspicuous by standing against a wall reading a newspaper while a boxing match is going on that he supposedly spent money to see. Even the woman anxious for the toilet paused to look at him.

  Gunther and I were at the right gate, and a wall clock told me that I was on time. A groan rose from the crowd, so I figured that Black Lightning had done his first evident damage. Curtis Bowie came loping along about thirty seconds later, looking a bit bewildered but holding onto his smile. He wore a dark ski sweater and a thin topcoat and had his hands in his pockets. I wasn’t sure what might be in those pockets. I hadn’t brought my trusty .38. I didn’t expect a shootout, but you could never tell what a desperate human or a fool will do.

  Bowie walked over to me and looked into my eyes, and the smile grew broader.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d recognize you,” he said.

  “Let’s get down to business,” I said. “Why did you do it?”

  “The money,” Bowie said, still grinning.

  “Money?” I asked. “What money?”

  “The money Max Gelhorn promised me,” Bowie went on, scratching his stomach and turning his head at another echoing groan from the crowd. He spotted Gunther and was fascinated by the sight.

  “Gelhorn paid you to do it?”

  “Of course. Well, he didn’t pay me but the guarantee was there,” said Bowie, unable to take his eyes from Gunther and return them to me.

  “So you killed Tillman and Larry from Chicago because Max Gelhorn paid you?”

  “Killed?” said Bowie, forcing his attention from Gunther. “I didn’t kill anybody. I was talking about the High Midnight script.”

  “If you didn’t kill anybody, why did you come here tonight?” I said.

  “Fargo killed him,” said Bowie with a smile.

  “Killed who?”

  “Whoever got killed,” explained Bowie. For a writer, he was having a hell of a time making things clear.

  “Why?” I asked checking the clock. I had another possible appointment in a few minutes.

  “A lot of hate in him,” said Bowie confidentially, “and a lot of need. I can’t see him being in the picture, but he’d do anything to get it off the ground, even more than I’d do. He’d kill for it. He said he’d kill to get this picture.”

  Gunther finally turned a page in the paper.

  “You see that little guy?” asked Bowie, pointing to Gunther.

  “Little guy?” I asked, looking around. “What little guy?”

  Gunther packed up his newspaper and moved slowly away. Bowie shook his head in wonder, and the crowd roared again.

  “Mickey would kill me, you or Cooper to get the picture done,” Bowie said, watching Gunther walk slowly and reluctantly toward the men’s room.

  “You think he can reach the toilet?” Bowie asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said. The bell rang inside the stadium, and crowd sounds swelled. “Why would he want to kill Cooper? He’s the goose with the golden face.”

  Bowie nodded and dropped his grin a bit.

  “What happens if Copper gets killed?” he said.

  “The picture deal is off,” I tried.

  The fight had obviously ended. People streamed out into the corridor, hurrying for the toilet and the hot-dog stand.

  “Maybe not,” said Bowie. “Maybe Mr. Gelhorn’s backer lets Gelhorn go ahead with someone else. If someone kills Cooper, Fargo and Gelhorn aren’t responsible for delivering him on the picture.”

  “You have a devious mind and a deceptive exterior,” I said as a sailor jostled me.

  “I’m a writer,” explained Bowie proudly.

  “How much did it cost you to get in here?” I said.

  “Cheap seats, a buck,” he said.

  I pulled out a couple of bucks and said, “It’s on Gary Cooper.”

  Bowie looked at the two bucks, was tempted, but plunged his hands deeper into his pockets to resist temptation.

  “Nope,” he said. “I like the fights, and maybe I’ll pic
k up some material for a script.”

  Sometimes you make a mistake. My sometimes came more often than those of other people. I tried to restore some of the pride I had shot away by returning his status as a murder suspect.

  “If Cooper got killed, the chances of your script being shot would go up,” I said seriously. “Your motives might be the same as Mickey Fargo’s.”

  Suspect Curtis Bowie straightened up and grinned at me. “Could be,” he said and walked into the oncoming crowd.

  Gunther hustled up to me and whispered while passersby watched us. “Shall I follow him?” said Gunther.

  “Right,” I said, resisting the urge to tell him to be inconspicuous. “Stay with him, and thanks, Gunther.” Gunther disappeared into the crowd, and I went back to my seat.

  Bulldog was counting his money and explaining the finer points of boxing to Carmen, who wasn’t paying attention.

  “You missed the knockout,” Carmen said sadly. “Black Lightning electrocuted the army.”

  “Very colorful,” chortled Bulldog.

  “You get a jolt out of taking candy from soldiers who don’t know the game,” I said irritably.

  Bulldog gave me a smirk and went back to counting his cash. There were guys like bulldog all over the stadium, guys who made their living knowing the fighters and the odds and playing on sentiment. Sometimes they lost, but usually they won.

  In about three minutes the next preliminary bout was ready to go. Again one fighter was white and the other black, but this time they were welterweights, and both looked tough, and both looked like they were beyond maximum draft age. The white guy had a face even more mushed in than mine. The black guy had a double dark line under his right eye. The white guy had been around long enough to spot an old scar and work on it. If the black guy didn’t nail him in the first round, the white guy would probably open the cut and work on it.

  “I’m feeling sentimental,” sighed the bulldog, talking over me at the soldier and then over his shoulder at anyone in the crowd who wanted to hear. “I take even money and take Monroe.” Monroe was the white fighter.

  The soldier next to me looked in his wallet and hesitated. He looked at me, and I shook my head no.