A Fatal Glass of Beer

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  She was right about all of that, but I was a pretty good listener, especially with a gun in the hands of a possible murderer aimed at my stomach.

  “It wasn’t right when you and Mr. Fields took the dwarf with you to drive,” he began.

  “Gunther’s a midget, or a little person,” I corrected. “He is anatomically perfectly proportioned.”

  “What the hell do I care?” said the Chimp. “You listening or you telling?”

  “Keeping things straight,” I said.

  “I’ve been keeping loonies and tough guys away from Mr. Fields for three years and I didn’t even tell him,” said the Chimp. “I’m a good driver.”

  “The best,” I agreed.

  “Don’t do that,” he said

  “What?”

  “What do you call it … humor me.”

  He raised the gun to the general area of my chest.

  “I won’t,” I said. “I’ll just listen.”

  “I like Mr. Fields,” the Chimp went on. “He didn’t care about my record. Didn’t even check. Pays me well. And he’s funny. I’m not a laugher, but he’s funny. I don’t even mind him calling me Chimp. I know what I look like, and Chimp is better than Albert Woloski.”

  I didn’t argue with him.

  “Mr. Fields needs protection,” he went on. “I took all my money, two hundred and twenty-four dollars, and followed you to Philadelphia. I was on the same planes as you, got on first, kept my head down and a magazine in front of me. Waited till you got off, and followed in a cab. Airplane took a big chunk of my cash. Now I was taking cabs. I know some guys there, in Philly, I did time with. When I knew where you were staying, I looked up one of the guys. He came up with a car for me, cheap, but it didn’t leave me with much, enough for food, a little backup for gas. I borrowed some tools in case I had to fix the car. I’m good with cars.”

  He was waiting for an answer.

  “I’ve noticed,” I said.

  He nodded and continued. “Started following you way back when you headed for Lancaster. Then I saw the blue Ford. He was trailing you, only not so far back. I saw it all. Saw him shoot at you. When you stopped at night, I slept in my car or on a fire escape, watched Mr. Fields’s room. Days when you didn’t stop, I didn’t stop. That time you caught me, I was sitting on the fire escape at the end of the hall. I heard the two shots and ran to Mr. Fields’s room. There was a guy there standing over the bed. I shot at him. He went out the window. I checked the bed. Mr. Fields wasn’t there. Then you came in. I didn’t want to shoot you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, remembering the death threats to me and to Fields.

  “So, I went out the window. The next day I started following him. He didn’t go into any of the banks. But I did see this tall, skinny guy everyplace we went. He never talked to the guy I was following, had his own car.”

  “Burton,” I said. “The tall guy’s name was Lester Burton. He was a forger. He stole the bankbooks. He was getting Mr. Fields’s money out of the banks. He was going to give it back. John Barrymore had hired him to get the money, part April Fools’ joke, part an attempt to protect Fields’s money.”

  The Chimp didn’t quite understand, but he nodded at what he could make of it.

  “The other guy who tried to shoot Mr. Fields, I followed him to the park the night he killed the tall guy,” the Chimp said. “I saw him shoot. I thought he was shooting at you. I couldn’t figure. Then he ran. I thought he might be running to shoot Mr. Fields. So I went to the hotel.”

  “You recognize this killer?” I asked.

  “I would now. Never saw him before Lancaster. After he killed the tall man, Burton?”

  “Burton,” I confirmed.

  “I lost him. Don’t know what he did.”

  “He ran to Burton’s room and took all of Mr. Fields’s money.”

  The Chimp nodded. It looked like fresh news to him.

  “I saw him shoot out your windows when you went to that Klan rally,” he said, getting back to simpler ground. “He followed you, stayed hidden. I looked for him.”

  “I saw you,” I said.

  “Then I saw him behind some trees,” said the Chimp. “He had a rifle. Aimed it at Mr. Fields. Then, just when I was going to get him, Mr. Fields sent the crowd after me. I can’t blame him. He didn’t know. I had to hide, go back for the car later. I knew the killer was after both of you.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “About as tall as you, as old as you, darker hair, good build, face like …” Albert looked around, scrunching up his face in an attempt to find the words to describe the man who had Fields’s money and had murdered Burton. “He’s more like me than you that way,” he said.

  I’m no prize with my smashed nose and battle scars—the face of an ex-pug who’s been through a few dozen bouts more than he should have. But on a reasonably fair scale, between me and the Chimp were all the homely men in the world. On the other side of the scale were the truly ugly.

  “Yesterday, at least I think it was yesterday,” he said. “In Rifle, I saw him drive down the street and park. It was my best chance. I’m running out of money and the car is making noises. I got out and took some shots at him. Lots of shots. I missed. I need to be up close.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said.

  “He jumped back in his car and drove away,” said the Chimp.

  “Which is why he didn’t go to the bank,” I said.

  “I don’t know about that,” said the Chimp, “but I’m low on food money, gas money, car-repair money. I’m low on money. I can keep following, but I’m gonna run out soon.”

  “And you want me to give you money so you can keep following us?” I asked.

  “A loan,” he said. “I can’t leave Mr. Fields alone. That guy’ll get him and you and the little guy. If I don’t get money, I’ll have to steal a car to keep watching your back. You believe me?”

  “I’ve been fooled by a lot of liars,” I said, “but I believe you.”

  I didn’t add that part of the reason I believed him was that he didn’t seem bright enough to make up the whole thing. Besides that, he had the gun.

  I pulled out my wallet. There were a couple hundred dollars in it from Fields’s daily payments and what I had left of my own. I put five twenties on the table next to me.

  “Up,” he said.

  I stood up.

  “Over by the bathroom,” he said.

  I moved over to the bathroom.

  “Inside,” he said.

  I went in.

  “I’m tellin’ the truth,” he said, picking up the twenties from the table. “I’ll be watching your back, looking for the guy. I’ll do better. Close the door.”

  I closed the bathroom door and heard him moving something. I could hear him coming toward the bathroom door. When I could sense him right outside, I knew I could pull out my .38 and fire through the door four or five times and probably get him, but I believed his story.

  I heard my hotel-room door open and close and I pushed at the bathroom door. It opened out. The Chimp had propped a chair under the handle. It didn’t take much to slide the chair back till it fell on the floor. There was no point in chasing the Chimp.

  I unzipped my jacket, ready to go for my gun, knowing now there was a man after us or in front of us with a bagful of money and a willingness to kill. I put my ear to Fields’s door and heard something between a snort and a snore. Back in my own room, I took off my jacket, gun, and holster, pulled the blanket from the bed along with the pillows, and placed the gun and holster next to the makeshift bed on the floor. I had learned to gauge mattresses. This one was definitely too soft and I knew that if I tried to sleep on it I probably wouldn’t be able to stand in the morning.

  I brushed my teeth, shaved so I would be relatively ready at dawn, packed my things, left the bathroom light on, turned off the other lights after locking my door and putting the same chair under the doorknob that the Chimp had put under the bathroom door. It wouldn’t stop a kille
r, but it should slow him down long enough to wake me and give me time to reach my weapon.

  My plan was to stay nearly awake all night. I lay there trying to figure it all out and failed. In fact, I had successfully failed at everything during this dash across America. The only thing I could point to in my favor was that Fields was still alive, but I wasn’t sure how much of that was due to anything I had done.

  I dreamed. I knew Koko the Clown was going to show up, with or without Betty Boop and Bimbo. Even Popeye and Wimpy might make an occasional appearance in my Koko dreams. I get the feeling that the dreams are trying to tell me something, but, like Juanita the fortune-teller’s warnings, I can never figure out what it is. Anne said the cartoon dreams were manifestations of arrested development. Her vocabulary is a lot better than mine.

  Cab Calloway was in this one, dressed in white, singing “Minnie the Moocher” while Betty Boop danced. I was the audience, alone except for one dark figure about five tables back. Since Calloway and Betty were looking directly at me, I couldn’t turn and get a good look at the shadow man.

  Then, suddenly, Koko was standing on my table, mimicking the movements of Calloway and Betty. Calloway and Betty suddenly disappeared and Russ Columbo was on the small stage, gazing soulfully at me and singing “Juanita.” The shadow man had moved a few tables closer and I was afraid to turn and look. Koko was sitting on the table now, his head spinning around while Columbo continued to sing.

  “Listen,” said Koko, his head suddenly stopping. “Listen to the song.”

  I did listen and I suddenly remembered, Juanita the fortune-teller in the Faraday Building had said something about two dead men.

  Something hard jabbed into the center of my back. Koko said, “Uh-oh,” and disappeared. I woke up.

  The sun was coming through the windows and I reached under my back. I had rolled over onto my own gun. I was lucky it hadn’t gone off. My first thought was to check my watch. Habit. It said it was 11:43. I knew it wasn’t close to that. I got up, an ache in my upper back, wondering who the shadow man was and who the second dead man was or was going to be.

  Before I did anything else, I called the desk and found out it was a little after eight in the morning. I threw some water on my face, tried to straighten the wrinkles in my clothes, went back in the other room, put on my holster, gun, and jacket, and threw the blankets and pillows back on the bed. A brush of my fingers through my hair and I was ready to go. I had never really unpacked except to get out clean underwear and a shirt.

  I pushed the chair out from under my doorknob and went to Fields’s room, where I knocked.

  “It is open,” he said. “And you are a tad tardy.”

  I went in. Fields was packed and ready. He wore a fresh, seemingly pressed cream-colored suit and an even whiter shirt with a large black bow tie.

  “Used to do a gag on stage at this point,” he said. “Drink in my hand, as you see me thus, I looked down at my watch to check the time. Drink, of course, tips into my lap. In fact, I had so mastered the trick that I could spill all of the drink onto the floor between my legs without getting a drop on me. Never used real alcohol. Waste. I’d get up. Dance around. Knock at the door on stage and in would come a lovely, scantily clad maiden who supposedly saw the wet spot in my crotch and said, ‘Mr. Fields, what happened?’

  “Anticipation,’ I would reply. The audience would go wild. Never failed. Except for the prudes. Then the gag started to show up all over the place. I anticipate this morning.”

  I decided to wait till we were comfortably settled in the car and headed back to Los Angeles before I told him about my visit from Albert Woloski.

  Fields finished his drink and rose, cane in hand. I noticed he was wearing spats. His hair was slightly moist and brushed back. This was our last chance, the final stop of the line on Burton’s list.

  “Then let’s go,” I said, taking his heavy suitcase in addition to mine while he picked up the picnic basket.

  I was about to knock at Gunther’s door when Fields stopped my hand.

  “Little fellow’s been up and about for hours. All packed. Car’s in front of the hotel. I’d say he’s in the lobby waiting.”

  I knocked. No answer. Fields was right. Gunther was in the lobby, fully suited, seated in a wooden-armed chair, his feet about eight inches from the floor. He was reading a magazine.

  When we approached him, he looked up at us and then back down, reading aloud.

  The pulse that stirs in the mind,

  The mind that urges bone,

  Move to the same wind

  That blows over stone.

  He put down the magazine, April’s Atlantic Monthly, and said, “By Theodore Spencer. Bought it this morning to bring to Jeremy Butler on the chance that he might miss it.”

  I doubted if Jeremy had missed a single issue of the magazine since he was twelve, but I just nodded.

  “Might buy me a copy of that,” said Fields, turning to lead us out the hotel’s front door and into the sunlight. “By gad, you’ve got windows back in.”

  Gunther, suitcase in hand, stood straight and nodded. “The radiator is also repaired with welding, as is the oil line. The knocking sound at high speed was a transmission problem which has been repaired by simply tightening screws and bolts by the garage man. About the body … again, there was no time.”

  “How much you out of pocket?” asked Fields.

  “Twenty-seven dollars,” said Gunther.

  Fields extracted three tens, as if by feel, and handed them to Gunther.

  “Use the difference for gas,” he said. “You deserve a battlefield commission and I hereby give you one. Captain Gunther Wherthman of the W. C. Fields coast-to-coast monetary expedition.”

  Fields tapped the amused Gunther gently on each shoulder with his cane and then, picnic basket in hand, climbed into the rear of the car, leaving Gunther and me to pack his bag and ours into the trunk.

  We were at the bank in three minutes. The street was just coming alive and not much at that. Gunther parked directly in front of the bank in a space specifically marked No Parking. “Park here, Captain,” Fields had ordered, and Gunther had obeyed.

  “We’re forty-five minutes early,” I said, looking at the clock on the dashboard.

  “Perfect,” said Fields with a smile.

  “Time for Gunther and me to run over to that restaurant across the street for a fast coffee and breakfast,” I said.

  “I have already eaten,” said Gunther.

  “Up at the crack of dawn, well fed, ready for battle,” said Fields. “He’ll make major before this excursion has run its course.”

  “I’m getting breakfast,” I said and got out of the car.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, since I was the first customer of the morning, I had finished toast, eggs over easy, hash browns, and two cups of coffee. I sat at the counter where I could see the car and the bank. The Caddy didn’t move and the bank didn’t open.

  I was just crossing the street when a man somewhere around fifty, wearing overalls, a red-flannel shirt, and a hunter’s cap, walked up to the bank door and started to open it.

  Fields, Gunther, and I were at his side before the door was halfway open. The man looked more than tired and more than slightly hung over. “You’re Fields,” he said.

  “Correct,” said Fields, offering his hand.

  “I’m Doug Mutter,” he said. “Alex’ll be along later. His missus left a message with my missus that you were looking for us. Haven’t had time to change.”

  He went to his left inside the bank and pulled open the curtains. The small bank needed no electric lights this morning.

  “This way,” said Mutter, waving for us to follow him past teller cages, beyond a quartet of desks, and into an office with his name on the door. He motioned for each of us to take a seat while he opened blinds, revealing barred windows.

  President Mutter sat down in his wooden swivel chair, closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and felt the gray stubble of
his face before turning to us.

  “The situation—” Fields began.

  “No situation,” said Mutter, taking off his cap and placing it on the desk. His hair was a wild tangle of yellow with perhaps the first tinges of gray mixed in.

  “Used to call you Whitey?” asked Fields.

  “Some still do,” said Mutter.

  “Me too,” said Fields.

  Mutter pushed two sheets of paper across his desk toward Fields.

  “The problem is this,” said Fields. “I seem to have forgotten what name …”

  “Your own,” said Doug Mutter, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You opened the account as W. C. Fields. Just sign. Show some identification.”

  Fields raised an eyebrow, and pulled out his billfold. Mutter gave it a quick glance and waved it away, looked at Fields’s signature, and opened his desk drawer. There was a neatly wrapped pile of bills.

  “Six thousand seven hundred and fifty, including interest,” said Mutter. “Alex and I stopped by just before sunup. Count it.”

  “No need,” said Fields with a smile. “It is a pleasure and a surprise to meet such an honest and trusting bank official.”

  Mutter put his head in his hand and gave us a gesture of dismissal.

  “Occasional drinking has killed more than one honest man,” said Fields. “I suggest working your way up to a habit or never getting beyond the slight social tipple. What you and Alex have done is disastrous.”

  Mutter didn’t move. We got up, left him alone, went out the door, and made our way back to the car.

  “That’s it,” I said as Fields tucked the new stack of bills in his picnic basket alongside his thermos, his olive jar, and his bottles of gin and vermouth.

  “Not by a long shot,” he said, sitting back. “Not by a ten under par with a couple of holes in one. We get back my money and we put the Chimp behind bars.”

  “He didn’t do it,” I said as Gunther put the car in gear. The transmission sounded fine.