High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  I had someplace to get to, but getting there was not a sure thing. A dash across an open walk brought me to the struts of a roller coaster. I climbed over the low wooden fence and went for the darkness of the steel framework. Over my shoulder I could see Hanohyez coming in my direction. He had spotted me.

  On my knees in shadow I let myself pant, then took a few deep breaths and held the last one as I saw his big body, gun in hand, come over the small fence. He did the right thing. Instead of plunging into the darkness after me, he stood and waited till he caught his breath, and then he listened.

  I had to breathe finally, and his head cocked in my direction. The fourth bullet hit a metal bar in front of my eyes and sent out a spark of light. I wasn’t counting the bullets, waiting for them to run out. He didn’t have a six-shooter and this wasn’t a Western. Maybe I was counting to see how much beyond reason I was surviving.

  Hanohyez was about twenty yards behind me when I vaulted the fence and found myself near a dip in the roller-coaster track. I could have gone over the other side and made a dash across an open square, where I’d be a great target, or I could climb up the track. If I made it to the first turn on the track and he followed me, I’d have a chance. I didn’t figure him to be a climber. I scrambled up, grabbing chain and track, and got to the first curve as Hanohyez spotted me and sent a hasty shot in my direction. It dug into the wood near my shoulder with a sickly thunk.

  If Hanohyez were a reasonable man, he wouldn’t have followed me. He would have gone ahead of me on the ground and waited. I couldn’t hide very well on top of a roller-coaster track. If he went ahead he could pluck me off. But he didn’t know when company might come, and the straightest route seemed best. He came up the track. I could hear him cursing, but I also knew that to climb, he’d have to put the .45 in his holster. I peered back over the curve and saw him coming on. There was nothing to throw at him. I considered rolling myself down on him, but the chances of either of us surviving were small. So I went on, scrambling down a dip and climbing up an even higher incline than the first. Over my right shoulder I had a beautiful view of Santa Monica. The Douglas plant was belching fire from its chimneys to turn out planes. Over my left shoulder the moon sent out a white sheet over the ocean. Behind me, Hanohyez stood at the top of the lower incline and took careful aim in my direction.

  This bullet tore hair and skin from my neck. It was the scratch of a wild witch and gave me a push over the top and down the other side.

  I nearly lost my grip going down, and I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t hear Hanohyez resolutely coming after me. Another idea must have entered his head, a good idea. When I got to the bottom of the dip, I was about a dozen feet from the ground. I hung over the side and let myself drop. I hit dirt, stumbled back and banged against a white picket fence designed to keep the curious away from danger.

  My neck wound pulsed. I touched it and asked it to be patient for the sake of all my body parts and functions. Hanohyez wasn’t in sight. I looked again and took off in the direction of the Dome Pier. He spotted me when I had almost made it across Pier Avenue. His footsteps echoed through the “Fun Zone” of concession booths and cafés, but he didn’t shoot. He could see that I wasn’t going for the street but heading for the ocean. Maybe he could even see that I was trapping myself.

  My footsteps grew louder and joined my heart in “When the Saints Go Marching In” as I went on. I was tired, but there wasn’t much further to go. At the end of the pier, I turned left on the walkway and moved more slowly. Behind me I could hear Hanohyez’s heavier tramping on the wooden walk. I stopped at the railing and looked back as his footsteps grew louder. And then he turned the corner with his gun raised.

  “Okay,” I panted, standing in the shadow about thirty yards from him. “I quit. Just make it as painless as possible.”

  Hanohyez walked forward, gun out slowly. “Like hell,” he said.

  “One last question,” I said, stepping out into the light. “Did you enjoy killing Lombardi or Tillman? How about Larry?”

  “I rubbed them out because I had to. It’s my vocation. I ain’t no nut who likes killing. But I’ll make an exception in your case.”

  The gun was leveled at my chest, and the shot was loud and close, a crack and a boom like a bullwhip.

  Hanohyez looked at his gun and then looked at me and said, “I’m terminated.” He put the gun back in his holster and toppled forward like Jimmy Cagney at the end of Public Enemy. I imagined the splinters hitting his face, and I felt sick.

  Phil stepped out of the shadows where I had been and moved down the walkway with his gun drawn and extended. Seidman moved to the other side of the railing, behind me, with his gun out. They were both pointing the weapons at the prone Hanohyez, who wasn’t quite dead. They were taking no chances. Both of them and I had seen more than one Lazarus rise from the dead to take another shot at an unwary cop.

  Seidman moved ahead and kicked Hanohyez with his toe while Phil covered him. Hanohyez groaned.

  “You heard?” I said, hearing the distant scream of the mad gull of Ocean Park.

  “We heard,” said Seidman. “Full confession.”

  I had asked Jeremy Butler to call Phil and have him hide at the corner of the pier while I brought the killer to him for a confession. Hanohyez had had other ideas, however, and those other ideas had almost cost me my plan and my life.

  Phil put his pistol away and strode back toward me.

  “You bagged another bad guy,” I said, waving. Phil swayed before my eyes, moonlight behind him. My vision was hazy, and he seemed to rise slowly from the pier like Harry Blackstone’s assistant.

  “All a joke to you,” he said, standing in front of me. I must have grinned because he put a broad hand on my neck to squeeze or shake a little brotherly sense into me, but his hand felt blood and came away quickly.

  “You’re hurt,” he said, grabbing my arm.

  “Hell,” I laughed, “it takes a silver bullet to kill me.”

  When I woke up a few hours later with Koko the Clown urging me off the air mattress and into the ocean, a rush of white made me wince and I closed my eyes again. I opened them slowly and realized I was in a Los Angeles County hospital.

  Phil was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He ran his hand through his hair, sighed and shook his head. “At least this time, no one used your head for a coconut,” he said.

  I sat up, feeling dizzy. My neck was stiff and I reached for it. A bandage held it in place.

  “Keep your hands off,” Phil said, stepping forward to whack my hand away. I almost fell off the table.

  “Marco?” I said.

  “Still alive,” said Phil.

  “And what happened to Fargo and Gelhorn?” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Let them go,” he said.

  “Let them go?”

  “I can’t hold them if there are no charges. You want to place charges? You think charges from you will hold up?” Phil was getting angry again, and I was in no condition to deal with his fists.

  “What about Cooper and Hemingway?” I tried. “They wouldn’t press charges?”

  “No,” he said. “Cooper said as far as he was concerned, it was all over, and he didn’t want any publicity. Had to let them go, but I had a nice talk with Gelhorn before he saw the door.”

  Phil’s eyes glinted with satisfaction, and I imagined Gelhorn’s little talk with him. It would be a talk that would have made Tony Galento want to stay away from further discussion.

  “We’ve got no charges on you,” Phil said, keeping his hands folded as I stood on wobbly legs. “You can’t drive. Come back to my place. Ruth wants to be sure you’re all right.”

  I didn’t argue. To argue meant I might win. Then I’d have to get a ride to Ocean Park, drive back to Hollywood and face the possibility of Mrs. Plaut before I could make it to bed. It was easier to nod and let Phil lead the way to his car.

  We didn’t talk on the way through Laurel Canyon and in
to North Hollywood. I kept dozing and clutched the bottle of white pills the nurse had given me for pain. Phil had told me that my .38 would be returned after a full investigation. I was in no hurry to get it back.

  When we got to his house, we woke up Ruth and my nephews Dave and Nate. They thanked me for Babe Ruth’s autograph and admired my wound. I almost told them their old man had drilled a bad guy, but I changed my mind. I had said too many wrong things in front of them in the past. The noise of a two A.M. family get-together woke the baby, Lucy, who wondered why I had a diaper on my neck.

  “He peed on his neck,” said Dave, giggling. Nate hit him, and Phil rapped Nate on the head.

  Ruth, looking thin, her hair in a puffy pink bag, hugged herself against the cold that wasn’t there and offered me something to drink. Before I could get the drink she went for, I was asleep in a chair.

  On Sunday morning I woke up, unable to move my neck. Phil was gone, on duty. Ruth and the kids had waited around to be sure I was alive before they went to Ruth’s mother in Pasadena for the day.

  “How come you always get blasted. Uncle Tobe?” asked Nate.

  “You should see the other guy?” countered Dave.

  I was glad they didn’t see the other guy. They might be able to sleep a few more nights without the things that had crept into my dreams.

  We good-byed for about five minutes, and Lucy managed to sneak up behind me and wallop me with the padlock from Dave’s bike. She laughed. I declined breakfast from Ruth, waved them away, took a pain pill, called a Yellow Cab and sat rigid-necked all the way to Ocean Park.

  Receipt in hand from the cab, I drove slowly to the Farraday Building, trying to ignore the parking ticket that clung to my windshield wiper. I hoped the wind would grab it and take it for a ride. I wanted to ignore it.

  There wasn’t much traffic on Hoover. I parked near the office and went in.

  Somewhere in the heights or depths of the building, someone was drunkenly singing “Side by Side.” By the time I got to my office, the double-echoed voice had gone through the song twice and was bellowing “Maybe we’re ragged and funny.”

  The door was locked and I let myself in. Sunday or no, my case was closed, and I had a bill to make out. I sat in my office listening to a guy with a sugar voice read the funny papers on the radio while I transferred costs from my notebook to my bill. Should I charge Cooper for bullets? Yes. How about the cost of the High Midnight script? Why not? I pulled the script from my desk drawer and added the cost of hot dogs, a shin, tacos, gas, a motel bill, sundry items and emergency medical treatment.

  I didn’t hear the door to the outer office open. I was having enough trouble juggling my accounts and trying to find out from the guy reading the funnies if Tiny Tim was going to get out of the bottle he was trapped in.

  When my door opened, I was aware of two bodies standing in it but I couldn’t place the faces for an instant. That was because I had never seen them in suits before; only in white smocks at Lombardi’s.

  “No office hours on Sunday,” I said, leaning back to look at them since I couldn’t lift my head. “Come back tomorrow.”

  Steve didn’t answer and Al stepped to one side of the door. Their hands were in their pockets,

  “You don’t know when to give up, do you?” Steve said.

  “Come on,” I said wearily. “I didn’t kill Lombardi. Hanohyez did. He came here from Chicago to kill Lombardi. He was sent. If he hadn’t got nailed by the cops last night, he’d probably be out today mopping up loose ends, like you two.”

  “It won’t do,” Steve said, hesitating.

  “It won’t do what?” I said. “Be my guest.” I picked up the phone and handed it to him. “Call Chicago or New York or wherever you call and take a chance with your life. You can either say Lombardi’s dead and you’re going to find who did it and settle the score, or you can say Hanohyez got killed but you helped him dump Lombardi before he went. Try it. You tell the first tale and I give you a week to ten days. You tell the second tale and you inherit a sausage factory.”

  I gave him the phone. “I’ll even give you the nickels,” I said.

  Steve looked at Al, who looked at Steve, who looked at me.

  “We’re going to think about it,” he said. “If you turned us wrong on this, we’ll be back.”

  “Why not kill him just to be sure?” Al tried. I turned my body toward him so I could see him and show my annoyance.

  “We’re not killing him if we don’t have to. The less killing you do, the fewer raps can come back to haunt you,” Steve said, waving Al out the door. Al gave me a sneer and went for the outer office.

  Steve stayed behind for a few seconds to stare me down. It was hard to keep my eyes on him without hurting my neck, but it was his game. In thirty seconds he had had enough and went out, closing the door behind him. I popped a pain pill, touched my neck carefully and put my hand over my mouth. In a few minutes I was ready to get back to my bill. Twenty minutes later I had it finished and ready for delivery.

  I called the number Cooper had given me, not expecting an answer. I imagined Hemingway and Cooper back in the hills firing madly at scampering, oinking wild pigs that Luís Felípe Castelli was flushing out with his ax. Between the shots the good old boys were swapping lies about women.

  I was wrong. Cooper answered. “Thought you might be calling,” he said. “Can I meet you someplace?”

  “I can come over there,” I said, “but if you feel like a Sunday out, you can come to my office. I’ve had a little scratch.”

  I gave him directions to the Farraday and told him to follow the sound of the drunk singing “Side by Side.” Hell, since I was pushing, I asked him to bring me a sandwich and a Pepsi. He gave me a clipped yes and hung up.

  Maybe the pills got to me or the pain or the image of Hanohyez lying on the pier, but I found myself passing the time by arguing with a Sunday-morning radio Evangelist who kept telling me where my soul was going if I didn’t straighten up. I stopped talking when I heard the outer door open and Cooper’s voice.

  “Peters?” he said.

  “In here,” I answered, and he followed my voice into the small office. He had a bag in hand and a Coke. I was sure I had said Pepsi, but this was no time for a culinary argument.

  Cooper looked ready to meet royalty. He wore a dark suit with wide lapels and dark stripes. A little handkerchief peeked out of his left breast pocket.

  “Have a seat,” I said, holding the package up to remove a sandwich.

  He sat and put his hands on his knees. “What happened to you?” he said.

  I told him as I ate, and then I countered, “Why didn’t you let the cops hold Fargo and Gelhorn?”

  Cooper shrugged. “Why? It’s all over, isn’t it? Besides, Fargo and Gelhorn know about Luís. Papa and I decided to call it square. Big cop with gray hair and mean eyes said he’d talk to them and show them the error of their ways.”

  I handed Cooper my bill, and he dug into his pocket, pulled out a wallet and counted off four one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “You did swell,” he said. “I wish I could have helped you more.”

  “My job,” I said. “You stick to acting and I’ll stick to getting my head pummeled.”

  “It’s a deal,” he smiled. He wanted to go, and I guess I wanted him to go, but we didn’t know quite how to end it. I asked him a question about his suit, and he told me tales of learning how to dress from some countess in Europe.

  “I think Papa’s sorry about you and him not hitting it off,” Cooper said, standing.

  “I never met your old man,” I said, trying not to count the money again in front of him.

  “No,” he laughed, “Hemingway—friends call him Papa. I think there’s too much of what he admires in you. It challenged him. Next step is for him to declare undying friendship.”

  “You are a philosopher, Coop,” I said, getting up and putting out my hand. He took it firmly.

  “You know,” he said, “that High Midnight sc
ript isn’t bad at all.” He pointed at the script on my desk. “Title’s good. Too bad.”

  We walked to the door and into the hall, where he told me I didn’t have to go down with him.

  “See you around,” he said, waving at me.

  “See you around,” I said, waving back. All he needed was a horse and some reasonable background music, but there was no horse, only the drunk who had gone from “Side by Side” to “We’re in the Money.”

  I closed up, packed my money and went home. Gunther was there, and I invited him out for Sunday dinner. It took Gunther twenty minutes to dress, though he had already looked ready for a banquet when I walked in.

  Over egg foo yung and pressed duck at Jee Gong Law’s on Alameda, Gunther displayed his knowledge of Chinese and I ate, stiff-necked and with wild abandon. We toasted Gary Cooper, Luís Felípe Castelli, Ernest Hemingway and Eleanor Roosevelt.

  Something had ended, and I had that nagging fear that nothing else was ready to begin. I washed away visions of filling in for Jack Ellis at the Ocean Palms with tea, beer and talk.

  “I think it is now time to go home,” Gunther said finally.

  I was about to argue with him, but realized he was right. I called for the check, overtipped and wondered on the way home if Mrs. Plaut would take kindly to my having a dog—maybe a dog who looked like my old beagle Kaiser Wilhelm.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Monday morning made me no great promises. In fact, it said, “This is the way the world ends. Take it or leave it.” My neck was feeling better, though I had no plans for getting rid of the bandage till I’d milked a few more hours of sympathy from the wound. The Sunday Los Angeles Times sat unread on my table. The headlines were enough to keep me from trespassing on the possible horrors inside. If the Times was right, the war must be about over and we were about to lose.